E 61 
.C65 






/am \/ w -afe** 







0 s^rLr* % *yz' > •••• 









b V 
9* 





ANNUAL, DISCOURSE, 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

OF 

PENNSYLVANIA, 

ON THE 28TH DAY OP APRIL, 1834, 

ON THE ORIGIN 

OF THE 

INDIAN POPULATION OF AMERICA. 



BY B. H. COATES, M. D. 



Es ist nicht moglich alles zu erklaren was in der grauen Vorwelt dammert ; es ist 
nicht moglich alles zu erklaren was die Natur in ihrer Werkstatte bereitet. 

Vater, iiber Amerika's Bevolkerung. 

It is not possible to explain every thing that glimmers in the twilight of grey anti- 
quity—it is not possible to explain all that is prepared in the laboratories of nature. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
PRINTED FOR M'CARTY & DAVIS, — No. 171, MARKET STREET. 

1834. 

*- 

t 

N 



At a special meeting of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, held at 
Philadelphia, April 28, 1834 : 



It was resolved that the thanks of the Society be presented to B. H. 
Coates, M. D., for his learned and interesting discourse pronounced this 
day, and that he be requested to furnish a copy for publication. 
(Extract from the minutes.) 

J. R. TYSON, Secretary. 



.C l>5 



ANNUAL DISCOURSE. 



GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

In compliance with the suggestion of the venerable pre- 
sident of the society, the subject which has been selected for 
the present occasion, is the origin of the Indian population of 
the American continent. A suggestion from such a source 
must necessarily call forth the best exertions which could be 
appropriated to its execution. Yet it is with no pretended 
fear that we approach the task. Standing unconnected, or 
related only at a remote angle, with the course of profes- 
sional pursuits, this difficult and far-extended inquiry has 
occupied the long leisure of erudite men, who have directed to 
the purpose all the collected force of vast libraries, learned 
conversation, and the authority of monarchs. Of the results 
of such efforts how incompetent a sketch could possibly be 
comprised within the limits of your annual oration? Even 
impartiality and judgment in selection, the utmost praise of 
a compiler, are here exposed to risk, by the extent of the re- 
search, the difficulty of foreign languages, and the absence 
of some of the desirable books. To this must be added, if 
the Society will excuse one more individual allusion, the 
want of time, and the urgency and anxiety of professional 
engagements. It is with such claims to indulgence, then, that 
we enter upon the execution of our allotted labour, an in- 
quiry into the origin of our Indian population. 

There is something in the very selection of such a subject 
calculated to call forth, in a striking manner, our gratitude 



4 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



to the Supreme disposer of things, for the blessings enjoyed 
by our nation. In search of a subject, we are going beyond 
the history of our own progenitors. The narrative of our 
own race, is short, simple, and soon exhausted. Freed, with 
few exceptions, from those great catastrophes which furnish 
materials for history and romance, it offers little but a detail 
of uninterrupted prosperity. It was well remarked by the 
historian, as a truth repeatedly urged on him while recapi- 
tulating the long details of the decay and ruin of the Roman 
Empire, that history is little but a record of the crimes and 
calamities of mankind, and that a want of materials to fill the 
swelling page, is the surest proof of tranquillity and of public 
and private happiness. Thus it is with the settlement of 
Pennsylvania. Its records may be said to exhibit but three 
events — the primitive foundation, the French war, and the 
revolution. The rest of our brief period is filled with abun- 
dance of every thing that exalts the prosperity and charac- 
ter of a nation, every thing that ministers to human happi- 
ness and worth, every thing that can furnish a recollection 
of the past, in which virtue may take delight, and examples 
which may be fearlessly trusted for the future ; every thing, 
in short, but the effusion of human blood, the conflagration of 
cities, and the death of patriots and martyrs upon the scaf- 
fold. Our remaining annals neither glow with military ar- 
dour, nor mourn the decline and fall of ancient empires or 
free and enlightened republics. Nothing appears but the 
gradual and monotonous growth of uninterrupted and unex- 
ampled prosperity. 

To abler hands than ours be it then left to select, amid the 
history of our progenitors, new subjects on which the mind 
may be excited to the contemplation of former wisdom 
and virtue. Be it ours to seek, amid the traces of a feebler 
and ruined race, materials which, however incompetent the 
manner of their exposition, at least possess, at the present 
moment, the advantage of greater novelty. 



THE INDIAN" POPULATION. 



5 



The origin of our Indian population is an obscure and dif- 
ficult problem. Deprived of the light of history, or the un- 
certain but sometimes useful gleams of fable, the materials 
are to be sought in a few vague and contradictory traditions, 
in an investigation of the similarity of language, in the form 
and local arrangements of coasts, in the resemblances of dif- 
ferent races of men, and in the influence of climate, locality, 
and habit upon the human form, features, and complexion. 
In the discussion of these different views, we are continually 
disappointed by the uncertainty, the contradictions and of- 
ten the entire nullity of the inferences which they afford. 
" America," exclaims a recent German writer, " is truly a 
new world. An immense continent, separated, during the 
thousands of years to which the records of history extend, 
from all connexion with the old, containing numerous tribes 
and nations of human beings, speaking four hundred lan- 
guages, the most diverse and frequently the most totally dis- 
connected by the loosest bond of analogy in the derivation 
of their words, or even in the nature of their grammars, totally 
in ignorance of the laws and catastrophes of the great nations 
of European and Asiatic antiquity, unacquainted with each 
other's existence, except as far as the mere vicinity — every 
thing presented, on the first advent of the Spaniards, the ap- 
pearance of entire dissimilarity to all with which they were 
previously acquainted." Manners, language, customs, ha- 
bits and traditionary history, all were new and unheard 
of; so much so that writers have been found, nursed and still 
remaining in the most settled habits of reverence for the 
sacred writings, who notwithstanding avowed the opinion, 
that they discovered in America the product of a new creation. 
And when, in later times and after a wider extent of dis- 
covery, the whole habitable circumference of the new con- 
tinent had become known, Europeans seem to have given the 
preference, by common consent, to that hypothesis of its po- 
pulation which refers the arrival of the primitive colonists to 



6 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



the very remotest point ever reached in the navigation of the 
globe. And when we arrive at that point, the difficulty and 
obscurity of the subject do not end here. Not only are the 
analogies in appearance between the American Indian, and 
the direct race of his supposed Mongol progenitor, few, 
vague and uncertain; not only does the evidence in favour of 
a similarity of language and manners diminish instead of in- 
creasing with the growing extent of inquiry, but we find the 
very road of communication obstructed. The Aleutian 
islands, the peninsula of Alaska, and the neighbourhood of 
Behring's Straits, are found occupied by men of another race, 
dissimilar in their appearance from either the Mongols or the 
Americans, and possessing an unquestioned and close analogy 
in physical characters, and a near resemblance in language 
to the Esquimaux. Nay, the researches of the modern 
learned go still farther; and it is now yielded as a settled 
point among philologists, that, judging from the languages of 
the vicinity, not only is the evidence wanting that America 
was peopled through these regions from the Asiatic continent, 
but there is the strongest reason to believe that emigration 
took place in the other direction, and that the north-eastern 
extremity of the older world was actually colonized from 
the new! 

Such and so great is the obscurity which pervades, to the 
latest moment of inquiry, the question of the origin of our 
American Indians. We might almost say of this, as has 
been said of the cholera, that Providence seems to have left 
it in darkness, with the express object of reminding us of the 
weakness of the human intellect, and of our dependence upon 
a higher power. And yet there is much to compensate us 
in the interest and grandeur of the inquiry— the source of 
the population of a third part of the world, and that section 
of the world our own of the unfortunate heroes of three de- 
molished empires, and of various warlike republics, whose at- 
tachment to liberty preserved and asserted their rights, either 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



7 



to the era of final deliverance from foreign invasion, or to 
that of the utter annihilation of their lives. The contem- 
plation of such objects is expanding to the mind; and, if the 
results of our labours be involved in too much mystery, 
there is an attraction to human curiosity in the mystery it- 
self. It is pleasant to walk in the track of human intellect, to 
follow the traces of profound and penetrating apprehension, 
untiring assiduity and accumulated knowledge, to witness 
the never-ending and still diversified struggle between the 
restless mind of man and the infinite obscurity which sur- 
rounds him. The problem of the American population is 
not solved ; but the language of the Aleiitian islands has now 
a written grammar, coasts have been surveyed far into the 
unmeasured recesses of northern frost, and the innumerable 
dialects of the wandering tribes who range the deserts of 
central Asia, or haunt the American forests and savannahs 
have been described, catalogued, and reduced to classification. 
To men of our own nation, the origin of the fast forgotten races 
that are vanishing before the axe of civilization, must always 
be an object of curious and humane interest; and to Pennsyl- 
vanians, in particular, the attractions of the subject should be 
heightened by a consciousness of the oft repeated efforts 
which their annals exhibit to arrest the progress of devasta- 
tion by the arts of peace. In no state have more persevering 
attempts been made to preserve the cruel but generous savage 
from annihilation, by the authority of Christianity and the 
protection of industry and knowledge. From the society of 
Friends have emanated those exertions, crowned with a 
modest but substantial success, to teach the arts of civilized 
life to the Indian, the good sense and practical utility of which 
have attracted the applause of foreign critics; and from the 
Moravian towns of Pennsylvania have issued those devoted 
missionaries, who have borne the cross of Christianity and the 
banner of civilization, in meek usefulness, through every clime, 



s 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



from the frozen deserts of Greenland to the torrid regions 
of Surinam. Be it allowed to us, then, to feel, in these ex- 
ertions of our fellow-citizens, all the chastened pride which 
the contemplation of so awful a subject as the diffusion of re- 
ligion may permit us to entertain. 

The study of Indian races possesses also a deep interest as 
a physiological problem. The new sciences of anthropology 
and ethnography, closely connected with our subject, and 
deriving from it some of their liveliest illustrations, are now 
justly considered as among the most splendid and profound 
triumphs of the human intellect. Throughout the countless 
throngs of the American tribes prevail a style of physiogno- 
my, and a configuration of the human frame, which afford a 
subject of interesting contemplation to the physiologist; while 
their innumerable languages, exhausting the most persevering 
labour of the philologist, afford new and enlarged views, in 
themselves attractive and imposing to the mind, and lending 
a curious and instructive light to the general mechanism of 
language. With these encouragements, we shall proceed to 
the accomplishment of our obscure and doubtful task. 

When, on the discovery of America, a crowd of new ob- 
jects presented themselves at once to the view of the asto- 
nished invaders, their first impression was, as it is well known, 
that the nations and regions which met their eyes belonged to 
the same continent with India. Traces of this belief are evi- 
dent in the names which they imposed; in the denomination 
West Indies, and in the application, familiar among ourselves, 
of the term Indians to the natives of this section of the globe. 
As long as this impression continued, it was not difficult to 
account for the peopling of the newly discovered territories. 
These being supposed continuous with Asia, it could hardly 
be made a question how inhabitants emigrated to them. But 
after the discovery of the South Sea, by Nugnez de Balboa, 
and particularly after it was ascertained, by the romantic and 



i 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



9 



adventurous expedition of Magellan, that a vast ocean lay be-- 
tween the new conquests of Spain and the long sought for 
India, at once arose the difficulty which has since exercised 
and perplexed so many philosophic minds. 

From this moment inquirers began to lose themselves in a 
wilderness of conjectures, founded upon loose or solitary ana-' 
logies, the bare enumeration of which, with the arguments 
intended to support them, would occupy a space which we 
can but ill spare, and which may serve to point out the com- 
plexity of the subject and the extreme scantiness of evidence* 
Thus we have authorities in favour of the origin of our Indi- 
ans from the Egyptians, the Israelites, the Canaanites, the 
Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the primeval inhabitants of 
Spain, the Celts, the Germans, the Chinese, the Hindoos, 
the Japanese, and the Tartars. Of these, though in an inves- 
tigation of them there is much of ingenious conjecture and 
wild and romantic narrative, we shall content ourselves, at 
present, with this cursory notice; and we shall proceed at 
once to an analysis of what appears best established in proba- 
bility. It is hardly necessary to add that we shall not attempt- 
to pierce the veil of thick darkness which hangs over the con- 
nexion of this remote people with the Mosaic account of the 
colonization of the world. Every attempt of this kind which 
has been made, and by the ablest hands, has only served to 
place in a still more conspicuous point of view the insuffi- 
ciency of the human intellect when directed to subjects upon 
which it has not pleased the God of nature to place evidence 
within its reach. 

We are met at the threshold by the theory, that the Ame- 
rican natives are a separate race, and received their being 
from a different act of creation; a doctrine having its origin 
as far back as the whimsical Paracelsus, who thought that each- 
hemisphere was peopled by a separate Adam; and which has 
since received the accession of several distinguished names, 

2 



10 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



and among them of that of Voltaire. It is attempted to be 
confirmed by the undeniable fact of peculiar animals in great 
numbers and variety being found attached to our soil. To 
discuss this question would lead us far from our object; and 
we shall, therefore, waive those arguments which prove the 
human race to have descended from a single original proge- 
nitor. We shall only remark, that no reasonable man, who 
compares the races of mankind, can for a moment fail to ob- 
serve that the difference in the appearance of the American 
Indians from the inhabitants of several regions of the old 
world is incomparably less than that which exists between 
well known and familiar branches of the population of the 
latter. An aboriginal American far more nearly resem- 
bles a Malay or an inhabitant of farther India, than the 
latter approximates either to the white European or to the 
African. We should, therefore, rather assume a separate 
Adam for the last-named variety of mankind, or for the Chi- 
nese or ultra-Gangetic Indian, than for the American. Much, 
however, need hardly be said to refute a theory which, be- 
sides its incompatibility with the records of revelation and 
with the doctrine of species in natural history, would, if car- 
ried out, lead to the assumption of an independent creation 
of mankind for each one of a dozen detached islands, if not 
for all those originally found peopled with uncivilized inha- 
bitants. The art of navigation affords an easier solution of 
the difficulty, a solution which we shall shortly apply to the 
colonization of America. 

In classifying the population of our continent, it may, in 
the first place, be now esteemed as a conceded point, that 
the whole extent of the extreme north is inhabited by a peo- 
ple of a distinct race. Greenland, Labrador, the whole nor- 
thern border of the main land of America, the sea coast ad- 
jacent to Asia, including the peninsula of Alaska and the 
chain of islands projecting from the latter towards the Asia- 



THE INDIAN" POPULATION". 



11 



tic coast, together with the portion of Asia immediately op- 
posite, are found in the possession of tribes evidently of a 
common origin. This is proved by their dwarfish stature, 
their dark complexions, their flattened faces, evidentlyapprox- 
imating to that of the Mongol, their habits of life, and their 
languages. All live by fishing, all inhabit the sea coast, and 
manifest the utmost unwillingness to leave it,^dl live in the 
most barbarous state of society/ and all speak either dialects 
of the Esquimaux language, or at least languages closely ap- 
proximated to this latter, both in their grammar and in the 
derivation of their words./ln nearly all these respects, they 
form a most striking contrast with the adjacent Indian tribes; 
and most remarkably and absolutely so in the two very im- 
portant 'particulars of bodily configuration and language. 
They are a race entirely distinct, and peculiarly adapted to 
inhabit the regions of the extreme north, in which probably 
men of any other origin would perish. 

The proximity of land is evidently sufficient throughout the 
whole round of the arctic circle, to permit a people so nautical 
in their habits to colonize, in that latitude, the whole circumfe- 
rence of the globe. Not only does there exist the facility, 
so often cited, of navigating from Asia to America, or in the 
opposite direction, by crossing Behring's Straits, aided by the 
islands which are found in the middle of them, together with 
the more southerly route of communication, along the chain 
of the Aleutian islands, and the peninsula of Alaska, roads 
assigned by so many writers as those by which the progeni- 
tors of our Indians reached this continent; but in the direc- 
tion of Europe the difficulties are by no means insuperable. 
The communication from Norway to Iceland and Greenland, 
discovered by the Norwegians in the ninth century, could 
have been, at a period still more remote, employed, as it then 
was, for purposes of colonization. From Greenland, the Es- 
quimaux race appears, according to the observations of Bak 



12 



ON THE ORIGIN OP 



fin .and Captain Ross, to communicate by extended migra- 
tions along the chain of islands that skirt the northern coast 
of the bay which has received the name of the former navi- 
gator, until they reach the coast of America. Besides this, 
there is the additional and easy route across Davis's Straits; 
a voyage not beyond what could be performed in Esquimaux 
whaling boats, such as would be capable of serving the ordi- 
nary purposes of these adventurous rovers. 

The colonization of the northern coast of America, there- 
fore, presents no difficulty in the explanation; the only ques- 
tion which remains consisting in the choice between the 
eastern and the western routes, or between a European and 
an Asiatic ancestry. In this the decision is not difficult; the 
Asiatic route is the shorter, and that which more imme- 
diately connects it with an analogous people. Opposed to 
the American continent, are the Tschuktschi; a people in 
conformation resembling the Esquimaux, of the most barba- 
rous habits of life, and whose language is found by philolo- 
gists to exhibit a similar origin. In grammatical construction 
and the derivation of many of their words, the traces of this 
appear to be too evident for denial. As there are such visi- 
ble marks of a common origin, the question of the possibility 
of migration across the arm of the sea which separates north- 
west America from Asia, is thus at once solved. But it still 
remains to be investigated in which direction the removal 
was effected. As the language of a people or race is generally 
presumed to have received its origin and gained its develop- 
ment in those regions where the inhabitants resided for the 
longest time in a state of social intercourse, and as this is 
presumed to take place where the greatest numbers and 
widest extent of population are. met with, this principle, 
when applied to the present case, would indicate that Ame- 
rica was the birth-place of this singular variety of mankind, 
and that the Tschuktschi were, in reality, a colony trans- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION". 



13 



mitted to Asia. Enough, however, is observed to show the 
possibility of a barbarous people performing this journey; and 
if we can permit our imaginations to revert to a period so 
ancient as to be prior to the formation of a language, we may 
easily refer the earliest origin of the race to a Mongolian, 
or, as usage has styled it, a Tartar ancestry. The analogy 
to the Mongol population, so commonly ascribed to our In- 
dians, is with the Esquimaux quite sufficiently visible. The 
whole conformation of the face and head is the same; the 
only remarkable difference between them in physical struc- 
ture consisting in a reduction of stature. This is so natural 
a result of the action of cold and a deficiency of food in ob- 
structing the development of the human figure, as certainly 
not to constitute a difficulty; and is, as is well known, com- 
mon to all the inhabitants of the remote north — the three 
great races of Esquimaux, Samoyedes, and Laplanders. 

The Mongolian origin, and the passage by Behring's Straits, 
and by the Aleutian islands and peninsula of Alaska, which we 
have thus attributed to the Esquimaux, have been also as- 
sumed as belonging to the whole mass of American Indians. 
Urged with the genius and taste of the historian of America, 
Dr. Robertson, this has become the settled opinion within the 
British islands and in the United States; and on the conti- 
nent of Europe, though inculcated with less confidence, and 
with a hesitation which is the offspring of greater knowledge, 
it is taught and defended by the learned editor of the Mi- 
thridates. In the present state of opinion, the various de- 
grees of importance which may be ascribed to this hypothe- 
sis, with the different modifications which it may be made 
to undergo, must naturally form a large part of what re- 
mains to be said upon this difficult subject. 

There is, then, no doubt of the possibility, and if other 
objections to this theory could be surmounted, of the very 
great probability of the original colonization of America from 



14 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



Asia, by one of the two north-west routes already indicated. 
At the Straits of Behring, the two continents are said to ap- 
proach so nearly as to make the island which lies in the 
middle of them visible from both shores. There is cer- 
tainly no impracticability in performing such a voyage in 
favourable weather, by means of very rude canoes; and it is 
by no means certain that, in this high northern latitude, 
the two sides of the straits have not been connected by ice. 
There are so many circumstances under which it is easy to 
conceive that individuals of a barbarous people, might pass 
from one continent to the other, that it appears quite unne- 
cessary to resort to any forced hypothesis to account for it. 
Without feeling any need of the supposition that these two 
parts of the world were once united and afterwards sepa- 
rated by an earthquake, it may suffice to suggest that hunt- 
ers and fishers, in want of food, and meeting, from various 
causes, with difficulty in supplying themselves from the pro- 
ductions of their native territory, might become desirous of 
trying the advantages of the opposite coast. At other times, 
families in canoes might be blown off by storms. In short, 
there is no difficulty in exhibiting the practicability of what, 
as we have above stated, appears to have actually taken place, 
a migration between Asia and America. 

The next argument which suggests itself to our conside- 
ration, is that America appears to have been settled by a 
savage people. M We may lay it down," says Dr. Robertson, 
as a certain principle in this inquiry, that America was 
not peopled by any nation of the ancient continent which 
had made considerable progress in civilization. — Even the 
most cultivated nations of America were strangers to many 
of those simple inventions which are almost coeval with so- 
ciety in other parts of the world, and were known in the 
earliest periods of civilized life with which we have any ac- 
quaintance. From this it is manifest that the tribes which 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



15 



originally migrated to America, came off from nations which 
must have been no less barbarous than were their posterity 
at the time when they were first discovered by the Europe- 
ans. For although the elegant and refined arts may decline 
or perish, amidst the violent shocks of those revolutions and 
disasters to which nations are exposed; the necessary arts of 
life, when once they have been introduced among any people, 
are never lost. None of the vicissitudes in human affairs affect 
these, and they continue to be practised as long as the race 
of men exists. If ever the use of iron had been known to 
the savages of America, or to their progenitors, if ever they 
had employed a plough, a loom or a forge, the utility of those 
inventions would have preserved them, and it is impossible 
that they should have been abandoned or forgotten." 

This reasoning is used in favour of the origin of the abo- 
riginal Americans from among the northern branches of the 
Mongolian race. It is certainly entitled to very great influ- 
ence in directing our attention, in the present inquiry, not to 
the great civilized nations of antiquity, at least in the state of 
refinement in which we meet with them in history, but to sa- 
vage and uncultivated hordes, or to isolated families of barba- 
rians. If the races who founded any of the empires of the earth, 
really furnished the original colonists of America, it must 
have been at a period long prior to historical records, and 
while they were yet unacquainted with the elementary arts 
alluded to by the historian we have quoted. The principle 
extends to the art of teaching domestic animals. If the colo- 
nists were aware of the luxuries derived by the rudest peo- 
ple from the services of the latter, we cannot suppose that 
they would have settled a vast continent without either car- 
rying with them some of those they originally possessed, or 
availing themselves, throughout their widely extended in- 
heritance, of the opportunity of taming those they found 
there. 



1$ 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



The application of the above argument is obstructed by 
the fact of the extreme difficulty of selecting a nation of the 
old world, in a state of destitution of so many of the most 
simple and necessary arts as the people of our own continent. 
The race of their proposed immediate progenitors, the Mon- 
golians, is found in our earliest histories possessed of the ser- 
vices of horses and cattle, of some other domestic animals, of 
iron, and of several mechanical inventions which were not 
met with among our American Indians. Even the most barba- 
rous tribes of Africa are possessed of iron, and acquainted 
with the services of the horse, and frequently of the elephant. 
The most refined nations of our continent, the Mexicans and 
Peruvians, as their inventions proceed, exhibit the strongest 
marks of having achieved their own civilization. Thus they 
used volcanic glass as a substitute for iron, arranged their ca- 
lendar upon a different principle, and made their approxima- 
tions to the art of writing in a manner, curious and wonder- 
ful from its extent and usefulness, but evidently altogether 
independent of foreign assistance. Where they reduced 
animals to servitude, these, as the Peruvian Llama, were pe- 
culiar to the country, and not the offspring of Asiatic proge- 
nitors. Other tribes, as our own immediate predecessors, were 
found destitute of nearly all the most common implements of 
labour, and of all domestic animals, of whatever species, with 
the exception of the dog. Neither horse, camel, drome- 
dary, elephant, ass, cow, sheep, goat, nor any of the do- 
mesticated fowls, were found in the possession of our Indians; 
and the dog differs so widely from his prototype of the old 
world as to have been thought a different species. 

The comparison with the Mongolian race, in general, thus 
fails in point of barbarism; and in order to make the argu- 
ment of Dr. Robertson operate in their favour, it is necessary 
either to suppose for their migration a time of great antiqui- 
ty, when these arts had not yet been invented, or to disco- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



I? 



ver a tribe in great and peculiar destitution. The comparisons 
which Professor Vater makes of the Americans with the 
Tungooses is applicable here; and we shall take the liberty 
of using it. 

According to the authority of Georgi, as quoted by our au- 
thor, the Tungooses resemble our Indians in having straight, 
black hair and little beard, or in some instances none at all. 
They live in a very barbarous state. A part of them, roam- 
ing upon the steppes in their vicinity, are provided with 
horses, reindeer and sheep; while those who obtain their sus- 
tenance by fishing are deprived of these animals, and possess 
none but the dog. Various analogies in habits and customs, 
are mentioned, in which they do certainly agree with many 
of the American Indians, but not to the exclusion of various- 
other barbarous people. For example, the practice of tattoo- 
ing, cited by Professor Vater, is known to be common to the 
South Sea islanders. The comparison of manners appears to 
us to be such as can be made in many other instances; easily 
reconcileable with the supposition of a connexion, but very 
far from affording a material proof in its favour. The pro- 
fessor goes on to say that the next tribe to the Tungooses, 
the Tschuktschi, are destitute of metallic tools, admitting by 
his language that these are possessed by the former. In 
short, the arts we have here enumerated, and, with the ex- 
ception of the Esquimaux, the strongly marked Mongol fea- 
tures and colour which this tribe are understood to possess, 
in common with so many of the inhabitants of Asia, are par- 
ticulars which are nowhere to be discovered throughout the 
whole range of the American continent. 

The subject of barbarism, which we have just considered, 
naturally leads to a general comparison of customs and man- 
ners; and in this we are compelled, from the necessary li- 
mitations of space and time, to omissions so extensive that 

we cannot reflect on them without pain. A very large por- 

3 



18 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



tion of what has been written on the origin of the American 
population has been founded upon points of coincidence in 
their habitual practices; and these have led a long list of great 
names to embark themselves in the defence of a series of hy- 
potheses, of which we will not say that each has destroyed its 
predecessor, but rather that they have all perished, in the 
lapse of time, from the want of a coherent and permanent 
character in the materials of which they were composed. 
To such we are bound to oppose the remark, now generally 
conceded to be correct by inquirers into the origin of nations, 
that isolated examples of similarity in manners and customs 
ought not to be assumed as evidence of a common origin, 
but that these are merely a proof and consequence of the 
identity of the human intellect, under all the diversity of cir- 
cumstances by which it may be influenced. Men of dif- 
ferent races, placed in a similar situation, but totally uncon- 
nected with each other, will fall upon many of the same 
practices and observances, guided by no other lights than 
those which have been individually bestowed upon them by 
their Creator. Thus it is doubtful whether any tribes exist 
so barbarous as to be deprived of all sentiment of religion. 
In many instances, detached and unconnected with each 
other, men will worship the sun and moon; and will venerate 
thunder as the voice of a superior being. 

Tarpeiis qui ssepe Deis sua thura neg&runt 

Inclusum fiasco venerantur cespite fulmen. Ltjcan. 

Nations in the most remote parts of the earth will be 
found regulating their time by the motions of the heavenly 
bodies; and from this cause using a division by years and 
months. If the progress of refinement lead them to a ma- 
thematical adjustment of these measures, they v/ill be led to 
the same corrections; because the same corrections are true, 
and are therefore the only ones to be made, although they 
may be expressed or reached by the combination of different 
numbers. The use of the bow and spear, the feather to the 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



19 



arrow, which gives the weapon augmented accuracy on a 
refined scientific principle, the art of navigation, and the 
application of fire to domestic purposes, have been found in 
situations the most remote and disconnected. Where nations, 
from the heat of their climate, are in the custom of employ- 
ing but little covering, a species of savage taste, or a sort of 
modesty, in imitating clothing, will lead to the practice of 
tattooing or of ornamenting the body with indelible marks; 
and in regions where monkeys, apes and other anthropomor- 
phous animals abound as familiar objects, and are used for 
food, the habit thus acquired, together with the indulgence 
of revenge in war and murder, occasionally give rise to the 
horrid practice of cannibalism. The return of periodical 
prosperity at the accession of spring and harvest, when either 
the climate moderates, or men gather the fruits of the earth, 
will yield occasion to the observance of public feasts, and to 
the giving of thanks to their divinities at such times; and to 
these they will add the monthly rejoicing at the appearance 
of the new moon. 

On this principle we may account for many of the simi- 
larities which have been traced between practices of the 
American Indians, and those previously known to exist 
among various nations of the older world. Thus the 
Mexicans cannot be denied to exhibit a curious and remark- 
able analogy to the Egyptians in their calendar, in their 
hieroglyphical writing, in the style of their architecture, and 
even in the forms of their pottery and sculpture. And yet, 
although supported by such names as Athanasius Kircher, 
in addition to those of several other writers, the idea of the 
origin of Mexican civilization from that of the Egyptians 
would at present hardly find a single partisan. Suffice it 
that the Mexicans themselves, in the picture history of their 
country, distinctly ascribe to the cultivation of their ancestors 
a duration of only a few centuries; thereby confining it to & 



ON THE ORIGIN OP 



period later by a thousand years than that in which the 
glories of the Pharaohs were interred in the ruins of their 
pyramids, and forgotten with their hieroglyphics. 

Similarities have likewise been traced or attempted to 
be traced between the subjects of our investigations and the 
ancient Israelites. The effort has been made, by means 
of these resemblances, to point out the latter as the probable 
source of American colonization; referring particularly to the 
lost tribes, removed by the king of Assyria. This inference 
is principally founded upon the observance of the new moon, 
certain regulations respecting cleanliness, &c, and the re- 
semblance in sound of one or two isolated words. Were we 
to dismiss, with a reference to what we have already said, the 
observations of our venerable countryman, Elias Boudinot, 
we should do no more than must be done by William Penn, 
by Adair, by Charlevoix, and by several other authorities. 

We shall not at present pursue this detail; satisfied that the 
manners of the American Indians, considered as a race of men, 
are altogether peculiar, and that they bear no resemblance to 
any other, such as to authorize the least inference as to the 
origin of the former. The ancient races of mankind, in the 
older world, possessed, during nearly all the period embraced 
in history, the use of various metals, tools and domestic ani- 
mals, together with certain modes of computing time, suffi- 
cient, in all, to render it entirely improbable that any of 
them furnished origin to the unfortunate aboriginals of our 
.continent. We are to look for the sources of the latter, not 
in. civilized and refined masses of men, but in remote, isolated 
and ignorant barbarians. These might have possessed a 
knowledge of fire, of navigation by canoes, of the bow, and 
of the domestic dog; because the latter are found widely ex- 
tended in America; but beyond these they could hardly have 
understood any of the common arts of domestic life. 

The subsequent civilization of the American Indians bears 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



SI 



the strongest marks of having been the labour of their own 
unassisted minds. The picture writing of Mexico, the 
greatest triumph of this curious and interesting career, may 
be considered, we apprehend, as the evident offspring of the 
painting by hieroglyphic signs with which our Missouri In- 
dians decorate their buffalo robes, and the trees, stripped of 
their bark, which they employ for the purpose of preserving 
and communicating intelligence. We should think it suffi- 
cient, after reading the descriptions, to compare for a few mi- 
nutes the figures of the former with the engravings presented 
in the accounts of Major Long's Expeditions. Both express 
material objects by rude representations, numbers by simple 
marks, &c. &c; while certain other ideas are conveyed by 
arbitrary characters. The difference between them does not 
appear to us greater than must necessarily exist between the 
productions of ignorant warriors and hunters, living in a 
simple form of society, and those of the members of a com- 
plicated state, possessed of property, and even, as described 
by Clavigero, of a species of science and literature. Add to 
this that the ruder examples are met with in regions which 
bear a close analogy in their population to those, a little far- 
ther west, to which the Mexicans trace their origin. And 
if we refer to the empire of Peru, or to the civilized masses 
of the Muyscas or the Araucanians, we shall find every where 
the same character of originality; meeting in no instance with 
reasonable evidence of the derivation of refined customs or 
manners from those of any other section of mankind. 

The conclusions obtained by the comparison of languages 
do not appear much more decided. Scarce any department 
of knowledge exhibits so large a mass of literary labour with 
so small a result produced. A few scattered analogies of 
sound are picked out of a great number of detached languages, 
totally differing in general etymology, and with their gram- 
mars and usages of diction varying in a manner- truly sur- 



22 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



prising, and which could not have been anticipated before 
the fact was known. The pioneer in this laborious task ap- 
pears to have been our countryman, Dr. Barton, whose ela- 
borate comparison of Indian words with those of the old con- 
tinent is to be found in his "New Views of the Origin of 
the Tribes and Nations of America.'" Professor Vater does 
full justice to the labour which must have been expended 
upon this comparative vocabulary, of which no one was so 
capable of judging as himself; but remarks its inconclusive 
character. " Comparisons," says this learned philologist, 
" must not be forced. Similarity ought to be perceptible in 
-the essential parts of words; and when discovered, should not 
he confined to two or three words in a language. Unsolid 
deductions alone can be drawn when a word, selected now 
from South now from North America, is compared at one 
time with those of the north-east coast of Asia, and at ano- 
ther with those of the Caucasus. To demonstrate a connex- 
ion between different languages and nations, and to afford 
foundations for certainty in the result, the coincidence of 
their words should be constant. The resemblances disco- 
vered by Dr. Barton are too slight, the languages compared 
innumerable, and the instances of similarity too few. These 
are sought for, in the present case, with much too great ea- 
gerness, and the inference of a connexion between the Ame- 
rican and Asiatic races drawn with far too much prompti- 
tude. " 

The -comparisons which the learned colleague of the great 
Adelung has himself published, certainly do not appear lia- 
ble to the charge of eagerness or haste. A life chiefly ex- 
pended in the study of languages, the task of first completing 
and then editing the Mithridates, the great philological work 
not of this but of all past and present ages, the authorship, as 
is alleged, of more grammars than have been prepared by 
any other-individual — such are the claims of this highly dis- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



23 



tinguished scholar to act as a judge in the inquiry now before 
us. More qualifications could scarcely be brought to the 
task. With great labour, and from a variety of authorities^ 
in every instance, it is believed, the best extant, and of which 
he has given us a list, he has made three vocabularies; em- 
bracing words of a similar sound, existing at the same time 
in the languages of America and in those of the older world. 
In preparing these tables the most rigid precautions were 
used. No words were inserted as analogous which did not 
embrace at least two consonants in which the resemblance 
existed; and great care was taken, guided by the knowledge 
and sagacity of the learned author, to confine the comparison 
to the radical and essential parts of words, rejecting the ter- 
minations which were common to many words of the same 
class. Thus the Basque, and, in fact, the Latin, te, thou or 
thee, is analogous to the Mexican te-huatl, the termination 
huatl being that which belongs to every personal pronoun. 
The words selected, are those which are considered as fur- 
nishing the established and fitting tests of similarity in a bar- 
barous language. We have not time or space to enlarge on the 
precautions necessary in selecting them. They should be 
familiar words, such as were necessary to the lonely savage, 
in his most simple and secluded mode of life. The personal 
pronouns, some mode of expressing which appears indispen- 
sable to every one who converses, the names of the elements, 
those of parts of the body, those of the immediate relations of 
father, mother, sister and brother, the numerals as far as ten, 
an extent of arithmetic which seems almost indispensably 
connected with the possession of the ordinary parts of the 
human body, of such a class are the words which, by com- 
mon consent, that is by the opinion of a few men of extraor- 
dinary learning and industry in this research, have become 
appropriated to the formation of a comparative vocabulary. 
None would certainly seem better adapted to his present 
purpose. 



24 



OX THE ORIGIN OF 



The languages selected for comparison, among the im- 
mense mass which exist upon the surface of the earth, were 
those of nations and tribes from which, by their proximity 
to America, colonization of the latter may be imagined to 
hare taken place. They were those of the north-east coast 
of Asia, excluding the more southern regions, and including 
the Malay; those of Western Africa, with the addition of 
the Coptic; and finally the ancient languages of the west of 
Europe, such as the Celtic, the Welsh, the Basque, the Es- 
thonian, the Finnish, the Lapponian, the Irish, and those of 
Cornwall and of Brittany. 

In his remarks on the foregoing elaborate and apparently 
endless task, the learned compiler himself acknowledges the 
great insufficiency of the results to produce any thing like a 
satisfactory impression on the mind. The evidences are too 
close, in his opinion, to be the mere work of chance; they 
furnish decided ground to presume a connexion to have exist- 
ed in some manner between America and Asia, while they 
leave every other circumstance connected with this single 
inference either as regards the direction of the transition, the 
seat of the common stock, the time, the route, or the order 
of succession, in the darkness of an utter chaos. 

To make comments on the foregoing product of vast learn- 
ing and years of industry, would hardly seem within the 
province of the general reader, or of those whom both duty 
and inclination strongly draw to the pursuit of other arts and 
studies. Yet. as the following survey would be incomplete 
without it, we shall present the impression made upon us by 
the perusal of the vocabularies, of the remarks made upon 
them by the learned author, of the parts relating to this sub- 
ject contained in a later compilation, the Atlas Ethnogra- 
phique of Professor Balbi, with the introductory volume, 
and of one or two partial references to other authorities. It 
is that of utter hopelessness. The objections which the 



THE IXDIAJV POPULATION. 



25 



learned Vater makes to the comparisons of Dr. Barton, in 
regard to the manner of their compilation, must certainly be 
considered as entirely removed, at least as far as human in- 
dustry, sagacity and learning and the lapse of many years 
could do them away; but those which arise from the nature 
of the subject itself, from the inexplicable and disappointing 
results obtained, do appear to us still applicable in a great de- 
gree to the learned and persevering labours of the European 
philologist. The comparisons are still few and sparse, and 
selected from a vast variety of remote dialects, many of them 
without visible approximation or connexion. The resem- 
blances enumerated amount, as we count them, to 104 be- 
tween the American languages and those of Asia and Aus- 
tralia, 43 with those of Europe, and 40 with those of Africa; 
in all 187. We must take leave to ask whether these are suffi- 
cient to prove a connexion between 400 dialects of America 
and the various languages of the old world. Lost in an 
ocean of multifarious forms of speech, selected, as they offer 
themselves, from the whole length of America, including 
Greenland, from amid tribes the most diversified in appear- 
ance and habits, the most widely separated nations of the old 
world selected for the parallels, Tungooses and Biscayans, 
Tartars and Boshiesmen, those who wrote the sacred language 
of the Hindoos, with the bards of Wales and the historians 
of ancient Ireland, quoted in bewildering confusion, or only 
classed by continents, can these coincidences be considered 
as leading to any available conclusion? One hundred and 
seven languages and dialects are compared to discover them, 
thus affording an average of little more than two or three 
comparisons in each case in which connexion is sought for. 
We would wish to speak of the labours of learned and illus- 
trious men with all becoming modesty; but does not this 
profound investigator over-estimate the results. of his inqui- 
ries when he pronounces these coincidences to be more than 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



the work of chance; or, to speak more correctly, are they not 
the effect of the similarity, among all the races of mankind,, 
of the organs of speech? We have seen it probable that the 
identity of the human intellect, under the same circum- 
stances, will lead to a similarity of manners and customs. 
Is it not equally evident that, from the structure of our bodies, 
certain sounds are produced with more facility than others, 
and are, from this cause, more frequently employed in the 
gradual construction of languages? It is, we believe, the 
opinion of philologists that forty or fifty letters will express 
all the elementary sounds employed in human intercourse 
in any part of the world. If the number of simple sounds 
be so small, will not certain easy conjunctions of them become 
peculiarly familiar among different unconnected nations, and 
is it not reasonable to presume that some of these will be 
employed in more tribes than one at the same time, to de- 
signate those familiar ideas which have been selected b} 7 phi- 
lologists for their vocabularies of comparison? With all pro- 
per reserve, we should suggest that this principle, which is 
assented .to by Professor Vater, appears sufficient to account 
for the resemblances enumerated above- and that it therefore 
cannot be considered proved at present that the languages of 
America, with the exception of the case of the Esquimaux 
and Tschuktschi, have any connexion with those of the old 
world. 

We should not lose sight of the great difficulty and liabi- 
lity to error essentially inherent in the inquiry. Mistakes 
of considerable number and magnitude are unavoidably com- 
mitted from the necessary disadvantages of intercourse in an 
unknown language, with imperfect or heedless interpreters. 
An amusing and yet striking example of this occurs in Mari- 
ner's account of the Tonga islands, where Captain Cook ap- 
pears to have been misled by this cause. Among other in- 
stances, the celebrated circumnavigator gives a word as the 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



27 



Tonga, for "good/' whereas, says Mariner, this signifies, 
" give it me if you please," the native having begged for 
the object which Captain Cook thought he was merely 
praising. Again, when he asked what was the Tonga for 
100,000, the savage, whose arithmetic probably did not ex- 
tend so high, replied by a phrase supposed by the reporter 
to express that number, but which really means " nonsense " 
or " foolish discourse." 

The prosecution of this curious inquiry, carried on, as it 
is, by men of profound understanding and unbounded learn- 
ing, can hardly fail to lead to many highly interesting results 
with regard to the affiliation of the tribes of mankind both 
on our own and the older continent. We are bound to state 
that one extensive section of this field of inquiry yet re- 
mains open to future labourers. We may mention the Mayo 
language, now spoken in Honduras, and which appears to 
have been the maternal stem of the dialects of the extermi- 
nated population of Cuba, Hayti, and Porto Rico. This 
possesses analogies with some of the dialects of the southern 
ramifications of Mount Atlas, in Africa; analogies which are 
considered worthy of attention by Balbi. The great empire 
of Brazil contains numerous languages, and the relics of more, 
which are either unknown or very imperfectly known to the 
ethnographer. As these are directly opposite to the conti- 
nent of Africa, across an ocean of more moderate width than 
that of the North Atlantic or Pacific, this circumstance, to- 
gether with the constant prevalence of the trade winds, ren- 
ders migration from east to west at that point by savage 
families a more probable occurrence; and as some other 
circumstances render that a point which it is interesting to 
examine in regard to emigration, we have a right to expect 
from that quarter a considerable mass of additional evidence 
on the difficult problem of American colonization. 

Another argument in favour of the Mongolian origin by 



. 28 ON THE ORIGIN Of 

north eastern Asia, and one generally assumed and much in- 
sisted on, is the similarity in conformation said to be met 
with between the American Indians and the men of Mongo- 
lian descent now encountered in Asia. This has, of late, 
been generally held as incontestable; and we are surprised at 
the facility with which persons who have been well aware 
of other difficulties have given in to this opinion. This is 
the more remarkable, as the materials for a correct judgment 
are so easy of access, and the point of which a judgment is 
to be formed so visible and conspicuous. The leading cha- 
racters of the Mongol conformation are a yellow colour, a 
forehead rather low and contracted, the facial angle rather less 
than in the European, the cheek bones wide and projecting, 
giving a broad and flat appearance to the face, and causing the 
nose to appear but little prominent, seeming buried among 
the other features, the opening of the eyes narrow and long, 
having the outer angle a little raised and the inner depressed, 
and the stature rather moderate, except in the extreme 
northern variety, in which it is dwarfish. Those of the 
American Indian are a colour usually styled red, cheek bones 
a little elevated, but not remarkably wide or projecting for- 
wards, nose nearly as prominent, according to Blumenbach, 
as in the European, eyes alleged to be similar to those of the 
Mongol, stature moderate, proportions slender, except when 
civilized, employed in labour and well fed, when, according 
to Heckevvelder, he becomes thick and muscular. 

We feel as if treading dangerous ground when questioning 
the accuracy of an inference so generally received as that of 
a resemblance between these two sets of characters; but we 
may be permitted to inquire whether this reverence for great 
names and established opinions, which has so often been the 
means of retarding the growth of science, has not operated 
to a disadvantage in the present inquiry. It really appears 
to the writer of these sheets that there is no particular re- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



29 



semblance such as has been described, other than in the fact 
of a slender conformation, a quality which is easily produced 
in all varieties of men, by an active mode of life, without 
heavy labour, and with a sparing or irregular nutrition. 
The yellow colour contrasts with a hue which we call red, 
and which is certainly no shade of yellow, and resembles in 
no degree that of the Mongolian Chinese who are occasion- 
ally brought to this part of the world. The low forehead 
and facial angle are assumed by Blumenbach as a distinction 
of the Mongol from the Caucasian or European race, and is 
common to all the other nations of mankind, excepting that 
it is rather smaller in the negro. The form of the opening 
of the eyelids described as narrow, and with the outer angle 
raised, has not appeared conspicuous to us in the most fa- 
miliar Indian faces, nor in the drawings of these people 
which we have seen; and certainly it is far from evident in 
the engraving which Professor Blumenbach has given us as 
an example. With regard to the next peculiarity, it has al- 
ways appeared to the writer of these sheets that a confusion 
of ideas existed among authors, and that the elevated cheek 
bones of the American variety of mankind bore none but an 
imaginary resemblance to the projecting and loidely spread 
cheek bones of the Mongol. Certain it is that the face of 
the American Indian in our vicinity is far from a flat one; 
the nose projecting, as is indeed acknowledged by Professor 
Blumenbach, nearly as much as in the European. Indeed, 
the writer of this has been informed by a member of the 
Missouri expedition that the prominent or Roman nose is 
very common among the Indians of that quarter; so much so 
that it is considered a mark of personal beauty, of which the 
warriors are frequently proud. In one tribe, according to 
Mr. Say, the established hieroglyphic character for beauty, 
was a bent line, expressing the contour of such a nose. 
The face of the portrait given by Blumenbach as an il= 



30 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



lustration of this race of men, is certainly wide, but by no 
means flat, the nose standing out in good relief. In his 
drawings of skulls, the bones of the nose visibly project, quite 
sufficiently to bring them within the bounds of the Cauca- 
sian variety, while the width just alluded to is not remarka- 
bly conspicuous. The same is equally true of the Indian 
skulls which I have been enabled to examine, that of a war 
chief preserved by the Phrenological Society, and those in 
the valuable collections of Dr. Samuel G. Morton and Dr. 
Harlan. 

The portrait given by Professor Blumenbach is worthy of 
especial attention in several particulars. Originally published 
by the father of anthropological science, in his classical work 
"De Generis humani Yarietate nativa," and multiplied in Eng- 
land and America, by having been copied in Lawrence's Lec- 
tures, this portrait bids fair, under the authority conferred by 
the high and long established reputation of the illustrious Got- 
tingen professor, to become the standard of the Indian coun- 
tenance throughout the learned world. It is, therefore, the 
more desirable, if there be any importance in attaining truth 
in regard to this subject, that this portrait should be a good 
specimen, and that the descriptions should coincide with it. 
Those who inspect the figure, and who are acquainted with 
the Indian physiognomy will be easily able to judge. To 
the writer of this it appears, in all candour, to bear no re- 
semblance to the Indian countenance, either as we see it in 
the examples which remain scattered among our white po- 
pulation, or in the distinguished war chiefs and orators who 
are sent to us on missions from a distance. Neither does it 
show to our satisfaction a correspondence with the characters 
of the race which we have enumerated above. The portrait 
in question seems mainly based on the Caucasian model, but 
endowed with disproportionate and enormous width and 
thickness of feature. It is difficult to conceive why this 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



31 



plate should be a fair representation of the Indian face, if, as 
we apprehend, under the name of Thayandaneega, it be that 
of the noted Brandt, who led the massacre at Wyoming, ce- 
lebrated by the poet Campbell, and who was the son of a 
white man. The adoption of such an example is another 
striking instance of the errors into which very learned men 
may be led, by a want of sufficient knowledge or care on the 
part of those from whom they derive their information. 

It does not, therefore, seem that the hypothesis of a Mon- 
golian origin derives any very positive support from a com- 
parison of the heads and figures of the two races. If the Ame- 
ricans be in reality descendants of a Mongol ancestry, the 
separation of the two branches of the family must have taken, 
place at a date so remote as to permit the formation of dis- 
tinctive characters quite as great as those which separate the 
latter from some others, as, for example, the Malay, 

The last argument in favour of this opinion which remains 
for us to consider, is the tradition alleged to have been pre- 
served among various Indian tribes, stating that their ances- 
tors migrated to their present seats from the north-west. 
The Mexicans possess what appears to be a minute account 
of the progress and order of succession by which their nation,, 
and others which surrounded or preceded them, removed to, 
their present lands from the vicinity of California. The, 
tribes still remaining in that vicinity would appear to retain 
many of the attributes which the Mexicans give to their an-, 
cestors; and if we receive accounts inserted in the newspa- 
pers, they are stated to have been found in this condition by- 
some of our countrymen who have recently visited them in 
pursuit of commerce. The Delaware tribes, we are told, re-< 
presented their own ancestors and those of the Six Nations 
as having arrived from beyond the Mississippi. On the other 
hand, the traditions of the Six Nations refer their ancestry 
to the vicinity of Montreal, from which they removed when 



32 



Otf THE ORIGIN OF 



they rebelled against the Adirondacks. Among the southern 
Indians, or those still farther north, I do not know of this 
tradition having ever existed; and at any rate, it can by no 
means be predicated of the immense variety of tribes that 
inhabit South America. 

Upon the whole, this tradition is certainly not without its 
weight; and it may not be unreasonable to concede that it 
seems to demonstrate emigration from the north-west to a 
certain extent. Yet, on the other hand, we ought not to for- 
get that it is confined to a few tribes and nations; and again, 
that, for the purpose of settling such a question, it is of short 
duration. By the Mexican chronology, the migration de- 
scribed in their paintings, would seem to bear date, according 
to Humboldt, for their own race, about 1178, and for the Tol- 
tecs, about 544. On the part of our Delawares, it would hardly 
be safe to assume a very remote period. Their traditions, 
when express upon this point, seldom name a high antiquity; 
and we know of nothing to prove a higher. The Indians of 
our country do not, we believe, retain any account of the 
daring an l adventurous expedition of Ferdinand de Soto. 
Such traditions as these, then, can hardly be applicable to a 
time so remote as that to which we have alluded, prior to 
the invention of the sword or the saw, or the reduction to 
servitude of the reindeer, the horse, or other domestic ani- 
mals. The distances, too, which the Indians represent as 
having been traversed in the migrations of their ancestors, 
are so short as to prove nothing more than the mere direc- 
tion of a movement. One is from California to the plain of 
Mexico; the other from beyond the Mississippi to the banks 
of the Delaware. It would, therefore, we conclude, be un- 
safe to assume these traditions as furnishing proof or strong 
presumption of a general colonization, at a very remote pe- 
riod, from beyond Behring's Straits. 

We have thus, laid before us for consideration, a sketch of 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



the arguments in favour of the Mongolian hypothesis. I am 
willing to grant, with the learned Vater, that these reflec- 
tions render it highly probable that descendants of the Mon- 
golians exist among the Indian tribes; but is not the evidence 
very defective towards such a conclusion as that which would 
draw the whole population of our continent from this source? 
To suppose that colonies of Mongolian descent have con- 
tributed to fill the amount of the American population, is a 
very different position from that which refers to this expla- 
nation the origin of the whole. The one is easily received 
by the mind, and is indeed strongly confirmed by the phy- 
sical conformation of the Esquimaux races; while the other 
supposition is liable, besides its vastness, to very serious di- 
rect objections. It would be giving a highly imperfect view 
to leave the question at the point to which we have now 
brought it, breaking off with the positive arguments in its 
favour, and omitting to speak of the independent obstacles to 
the admission of such an hypothesis. We shall, therefore^ 
devote a few moments to the consideration of these. 

In the first place, a very material objection arises from the 
form and great length of the American continent. To derive 
the population of the whole from the north-western angle, 
requires the supposition of a continued chain of colonies 
during a long succession of ages, acquiring and using an im- 
mense diversity of languages, and pursuing each other along 
the huge ridge of the great American Andes, from Prince 
William's Sound, in the far north, to the extremity of Tierra 
del Fuego, a distance of one hundred and fifteen degrees of 
latitude, or of eight thousand miles. This long succession of 
occurrences is absolutely necessary to the theory; which is 
thus liable to the difficulty of requiring two extensive hypo- 
theses at once. Several hundred colonies must be imagined 
to have issued from the same point, all completely isolated, 
as their languages abundantly show, unconnected by peace- 

5 



34 



0> THE ORIGIN OF 



ful intercourse, but urging each other by war and the de- 
struction of the game, throughout a third part of the circum- 
ference of the globe. Natives of the Mexican territory are 
represented, in the picture history of the latter, to have oc- 
cupied their present seats from a period anterior by nine 
hundred and seventy-seven years to theepocha of the Spanish 
conquest: in this manner retrograding to about the middle of 
the sixth century. Thus, during a space of a little less than 
three thousand years, the interval from this period back to 
the deluge, these tribes must have succeeded each other 
throughout this route until the colonization of South America 
wa3 completed. 

The traces of such a series of humau waves would natural- 
ly be looked for in a tendency to a denser population in the 
MHtfe, from which they emanated, and where the pressure 
must have been greatest and the colonization of longest du- 
ration. Nothing like this is observed : the population of South 
America, and of Darien, Guatimala and Mexico being much 
greater in proportion than that of any country farther north. 
The marks of early civilization, too, one of the most im- 
portant proofs of long residence in a fixed spot, are all, as in 
the older world, in favour of the tropical climates; and in the 
colder south, the nation of the Araucanians would seem to 
have possessed a degree of civilization exceeding, by a vast 
difference, any that can possibly be attributed to the inhabi- 
tants of the similar climates in the northern hemisphere, re- 
gions which would extend from Tennessee to Boston. 

Another difficulty in the way of this hypothesis, or of any 
one which refers the origin of the Indian population to a sin- 
gle source,, consists in the great diversity of physiognomical 
characters and physical structure which is found among them. 
Thepopular opinion on thispoint is indeed one powerful means 
of supporting the existing hypothesis. It is commonly held 
that all Indians are alike; and that he who has seen one of 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



these people has, to any useful purpose of recognition, seen 
them all. One uniform physiognomy is said to be common 
to the whole; partaking, as we have just seen, of that of the 
Mongolians. If this were established, it would undoubtedly 
have considerable weight in inducing us to ascribe them to 
a single origin, and of preference to that which we have been 
discussing. It is, therefore, the more remarkable that an opi- 
nion of so much importance, and so generally received, 
should differ so widely from the statements of those who 
have had the best opportunities of observing. 

" I cannot help smiling," says Molina, " when I read in 
certain modern authors, and those, too, accounted diligent ob- 
servers, that all the Americans have one cast of countenance, 
and that when you have seen one, you know the whole."- — 
" The difference between an inhabitant of Chili and a Peru- 
vian is not less than between an Italian and a German. 1 
have found the Indians of Paraguay, of the Straits of Magel- 
lan, and of other parts, most obviously and strikingly distin- 
guished from each other by peculiar lineaments." In South 
America, according to Mr. Lawrence, we have the Caaiguas, 
with flat noses, observed by Del Techo; the Abipones, of 
whom many individuals have aquiline noses, by Dobrizhoffer; 
the Peruvians, with narrow and aquiline noses, by Ulloa; 
the Chilese, with rather a broad nose, by Molina, and the 
Islanders of Tierra del Fuego, with a very depressed one, by 
G. Forster. " The same style of feature," says Baron Hum- 
boldt, " exists, no doubt, in both Americas; but those Euro- 
peans who have sailed on the great rivers Orinoco and Ama- 
zons, and have had occasion to see a great number of tribes 
assembled under the monastical hierarchy in the missions, 
must have observed that the American race contains nations 
whose features differ as essentially from one another as the 
numerous varieties of the race of Caucasus, the Circassians, 
Moors, and Persians, differ from one another. The tail form 



36 



ON THE ORTGIN OF 



of the Patagonians is again found by us, as it were, among 
the Caribs, who dwell in the plains from the delta of the 
Orinoco to the sources of the Rio Bravo. What a difference 
between the figure, physiognomy, and physical constitution 
of these Caribs, (who ought to be accounted one of the most 
robust nations on the face of the earth, and are not to be con- 
founded with the degenerate Zambos, formerly called Caribs, 
of the island St. Vincent,) and the squat bodies of the Chay- 
ma Indians of the province of Cumana! What a difference of 
form between the Indians of Tlascala, and the Lipans and 
Chichimecs of the northern part of Mexico!" 

According to writers, the native Indians of Brazil are ge- 
nerally of a much more intense black than many of the other 
races; and, if we may give trust to the splendid plates of 
Spix and Martius, their physiognomy differs widely from 
most of those prevalent among the aborigines of the United 
States. It is a general remark with those who have spent a 
length of time among the latter, that the different tribes are 
easily known from each other by their varieties of physiog- 
nomy. Examples of this, both as to feature and complexion, 
are not difficult to multiply; but one recently communicated 
to me by Mr. Nuttall is the more interesting as bearing upon 
another point in the inquiry, the supposed resemblance to 
the Mongolians. According to this traveller, the Indians 
beyond the Rocky Mountains are generally characterized by 
a flat nose, and gradually approximate to the Esquimaux, 
while the Sioux and others in the plains of the Missouri, are 
distinguished by a strongly marked Roman nose, so distinct 
as to serve the men of the two races to distinguish each other 
in time of war. 

If we refer to etymologies, we shall find a still greater de- 
fect in the evidence of the identity of the American race. 
Several large masses, including various tribes, are pointed 
out as exhibiting traces of so many general connexions; to 



THE INDIAN POPULATION'. 



which others may be added, as in our country, the Delaware, 
the Iroquois, and the southern or Floridian. With the. ex- 
ception of these resemblances, the labours of Vater have been 
quite as unsuccessful in discovering marks of etymological 
similarity among the American languages themselves, as be- 
tween these and the dialects of the older world. These fa- 
milies of nations, though sometimes extensive, differ quite 
as widely from one another as any of the other groups with- 
in the limits of human knowledge. At the same time, it 
must be confessed that they all possess the singular resem- 
blance of what is called by our distinguished countryman, 
P. S. Duponceau, Esq., a highly poly synthetic character; a 
quality apparently derivable from a peculiar and characteris- 
tic turn of mind. 

Such and so various are the arguments which have been 
used, as we have collected them, in discussing the celebrated 
theory of the Mongolian or so called Tartar origin of the 
American Indians. The inference must be drawn by my 
hearers. As far as it feels practicable to the humble com- 
piler of these sheets to form an opinion on a subject which 
has exhausted so much learning, it appears to him to stand 
reduced to all reasonable probability, that a portion of Mon= 
golian blood has contributed, in very ancient times, to swell 
the population oflhe two Americas; that this is most predo- 
minant in the north, the Esquimaux exhibiting strong traces 
of it in their physical conformation, and that a certain degree 
of likelihood accompanies the ascription of a share of it to 
some of the other tribes, particularly in those met with by 
Mr. Nuttall west of the Rocky Mountains, which seem to 
melt gradually into the Esquimaux family. 

To extend it to the whole population of this immense con- 
tinent, from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, seems, on the 
other hand, to be a strained and forced conclusion, improba- 
ble in itself, indeed appearing almost impossible, if we refer 



23 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



to the considerations which we have recently expressed, and 
incapable of being reconciled with the immense variety of lan= 
guages, and other marks of numerous independent races. 
The inference which most commands our confidence, is, that 
America, like other sections of the world, was peopled from 
several sources; and that this was effected by numerous colo- 
nies, and in an antiquity so remote as to precede the records 
of history, the invention of most domestic mechanic arts, and 
the formation of widely diffused languages. 

That this might easily have taken place may be obviously 
inferred from a fact familiar by its frequency, and at the 
non-application of which we must be allowed to express our 
surprise, We allude to the peopling of islands; the majority 
of which, throughout the globe, including nearly all those 
within climates favourable to human life, present precisely 
the same problem in this respect, with the continent of Ame- 
rica. They have been found inhabited, and this from a pe- 
riod of antiquity more remote than any authentic history, 
by diverse and barbarous people; and to the islands must be 
added the continent of New Holland. To the author of these 
sheets it has often appeared singular that the identity of 
the problem of their colonization with that in the case of 
America had not been developed by the writers he had pe- 
rused. The difficulty in the case of the islands is even 
greater than in the other instance. We have here no ap- 
proximation to any older territory. Unless we suppose many 
violent convulsions of nature, the colonists must have been 
conveyed by long navigation, and this with additional diffi- 
culties to which we shall shortly allude. The existence of 
barbarous colonies on such a multitude of detached islands, 
always excepting the forced and improbable hypothesis of 
so many separations by earthquakes or violent irruptions of 
the sea, sufficiently demonstrates the existence, at a very 
early period of the human race, of some means of navigation. 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



All the arguments respecting the domestic arts and the train- 
ing of animals which we recited with regard to America, are 
more or less applicable to the islands, and some of them with 
additional force, proving the remote date and the barbarous 
condition of the primal colonies. This being established, it 
would indeed appear to the writer, that the practicability of 
the settlement of America hardly remains a problem. If 
we can suppose savages wandering over the bosom of the 
ocean for thousands of miles, on rafts or in canoes, and en- 
abled to find islands of a few miles in width, with such im- 
perfect means as we can imagine these to have possessed, 
how can the question be asked in what manner similar ad- 
venturers could attain the proximate coast of a mighty con- 
tinent, extending throughout a third part of the circumfe- 
rence of the globe? Indeed the real difficulty must have 
been less. Where one canoe, with its load of starving hu- 
man beings, destitute of all knowledge of astronomy or geo- 
graphy, could discover and reach the shore of a small island 
in the midst of the pathless expanse, many others must have 
missed the narrow boundaries, and gone on wandering over 
the ocean, till want, sickness or tempests put a period to 
their wretchedness. The prolonged coast of a continent, on 
the other hand, could not be missed by any one who perse- 
vered for a sufficient length of time in the same general di- 
rection. No compass, map, or scientific knowledge is ne- 
cessary to reach with certainty that which forms an impassi- 
ble barrier between one ocean and another. Colonization 
might easily be effected at various times, and at a great num- 
ber of independent points. Persons from Africa, from the 
Canary isles, or from the territory supposed by Bory de St. 
Vincent to form the ancient Atalantis, from the Azores, and 
even from Spain, might easily make the short run to Ame- 
rica, by the aid of the trade winds. This facility is pecu- 
liarly great where the Atlantic is narrowed by the projection 



40 



ON THE ORK3IX 0* 



of the two coasts of Africa and Brazil. On the west, similar 
occurrences are rendered more probable by the proximity 
and number of the islands, and by the proverbial calmness 
of the Pacific Ocean. Nor is it at all impossible that similar 
colonies may have reached our shores from China and Japan, 
or from the north of Europe; the only objection to these 
celebrated hypotheses arising from the absence of imported 
arts, and the total want of probable evidence towards identi- 
fying the descendants of the colonists. These sources may 
have contributed to the peopling of America; but the consi- 
derations which we have heretofore adduced sufficiently de- 
monstrate, that, if they ever really did so, it must have oc- 
curred at a period of remote antiquity and extreme barbarism. 

In proceeding to comment upon the individual races which 
may have thus combined to form the population of our con- 
tinent, we shall adhere to the plan, pointed out in an early 
part of this discourse, of citing or mentioning but in a cur- 
sory manner, the various theories and the statements collect- 
ed from alleged history, of colonization by masses of civi- 
lized men. It is not that we wish to treat them with disre- 
spect; but that the limits of this essay will not allow us to 
detail the very copious discussions to which they have given 
rise. This appears to us the less necessary from the argu- 
ments which we have already used to demonstrate that the 
early colonists of America could not have possessed the arts 
of civilization. These considerations must excuse us for 
what would otherwise be a blameworthy and disrespectful 
omission. 

The race of which we would first speak is one to which 
we have often been surprised that so little attention has 
hitherto been paid; we mean the Malay. Scattered through- 
out a space of about one hundred and forty degrees of longi- 
tude, or about two-fifths of the circumference of the globe, 
from Madagascar to Easter Island, in the vicinity of Ame- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



41 



rica, characterized by the most striking peculiarities as a race, 
yet exhibiting a variety of modifications, this singular people 
have justly received the epithet Oceanic. Their colonies 
have been the most widely disseminated upon the face of 
the whole earth. Each little island, formed by the deposites 
of the sea upon some coral reef, through all the vast extent 
of the Pacific Ocean, may almost be said, if it contain the 
necessary materials for the support of human life, to be in- 
habited by men of this ancestry. 

While they fill the whole of the smaller islands, they oc- 
cupy the coasts of the larger; the negro race retreating to the 
mountains, before the superior knowledge, activity and war- 
like spirit of the Malays. Thus they possess the entire 
coast of Celebes and of Borneo, that territory so large that au- 
thors have doubted whether it ought not to be denominated 
a continent. In the great and fertile island of Java, they 
constitute partially civilized nations, possessed of a litera- 
ture, a religion, and a splendid style of architecture; while in 
Madagascar the}' seem to approximate more to the adjacent 
Africans; and in the peninsula of Malacca, they appear to 
exist in such a fierce and untamed condition, that, aided by 
the difficulties of the country, they have hitherto bid defiance 
to the prowess and ambition of the adjacent European con- 
querors. With the few agricultural exceptions enumerated, 
the Malays are distinguished by a restless fondness for navi- 
gation and piracy, and as far as they understand them, for 
all the employments and amusements of the ocean. In the 
South sea islands, they furnish the greatest swimmers in the 
world; and they display in every instance where they addict 
themselves to the maritime life, a considerable degree of skill 
m the construction and management of their vessels. In 
every residence, they are a fierce and warlike people, terri- 
ble to their neighbours, and living in a state of constant and 

habitual preparation for battle, 

6 



42 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



Among them are found, collected in particular localities, 
numerous individuals whose resemblance to the African negro 
is so great that most writers have referred them to the same 
variety of mankind. The differences, if any exist, are slight, 
and not sufficient to do away the idea of a common descent. 
They are men of a black complexion, with short woolly hair 
and a flattened nose; and form a striking contrast with the 
fiery and cunning Malays. These black people are found in 
the Andaman islands in the bay of Bengal, in the conti- 
nent of New Holland, the vast island of Van Diemen's Land, 
and the mountainous and woody interior of the torrid re- 
gions of Borneo and Celebes. Some of them much resemble 
the African blacks; others, as the New Hollanders, though 
evidently connected in race, possess less of the flattened 
nose, projecting jaws and woolly hair. Some of these, as the 
Andaman islanders, are considered by many travellers as the 
most imbruted of the human race, violent, sullen, stupid, and 
apparently devoid of humane feelings; while others, as the 
New Hollanders, are described as gentle and inoffensive, 
though very difficult to bring to a state of civilization. 

Several of the islands of the South Sea appear not to have 
been sufficiently examined. The inhabitants, though bear- 
ing much resemblance to their neighbours of the Malay race, 
have not as yet been adequately compared, through the me- 
dium of their languages, with tribes of the acknowledged 
stock. It is sufficiently obvious that both these and the 
island and New Holland blacks could only have reached 
their present seats by navigation, at least unless we resort 
to the hypothesis of irruptions of the sea. Such then are 
the races from which we have next to inquire the probability 
of American colonization. 

The first remark which we shall add to the above is that 
the races of the Malays and the Americans are in physical ap- 
pearance extremely similar. In following up the extension 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 43 

of the former, we find it subjected to many varieties, though 
still referred to a common stock. If we decide it to terminate 
at a given point,one would naturally expect to find, in that situ- 
ation, a well marked and visible change in form and physiog- 
nomy. Now we think, if the characters of the two races, the 
American and the Malay, as given by physiologists and tra- 
vellers, be compared with each other, and the great variations 
of both be farther taken into account, it would be difficult to 
point out any material, we would almost say any difference 
between them as characterizing their respective totalities. 
The distinctions between the European and the African 
are continually before us; they are striking, and no one could 
possibly avoid observing many of them. Those between 
the former and the Mongolian, although less distinctly 
.marked, are yet sufficiently visible; the small, narrow and 
oblique eye, the broad and flattened countenance and the 
depressed nose, will attract every one's attention. The Ma- 
lay is distinguished from the European by his dark colour; 
to which is added an accumulation of smaller and less essen- 
tial characters, the enumeration of which may embarrass the 
attention. Let us inquire whether the alleged fifth variety, 
the Americans, possess distinctive characters of equal va- 
lue, or sufficient to distinguish it from one of its nearest 
neighbours. 

The characters of the Malay variety of the human species, 
according to Blumenbach and his copyists, are, a brown co- 
lour, hair more or less black, and abundant, head rather 
narrow, bones of the face large and prominent, nose full and 
broad towards the apex, with a large mouth. The colour, 
according to Lawrence, varies from a light tawny tint, not 
deeper than that of the Spaniards and Portuguese, to a deep 
brown approaching to black. It is well known that some 
are nearly white. We shall follow Lawrence in copying the 
characters of the American variety, as he gives them more 



44 



ON THE ORIGIN OP 



fully than Blumenbach. They are stated to be a dark skin 
of a more or less red tint, black, straight and long hair, small 
beard, which is generally eradicated, and a countenance and 
skull very similar to those of the Mongolian tribes — a state- 
ment the correctness of which we have just been discussing. 
The forehead, it is farther said, is low, the eyes deep, 
the face broad, particularly across the cheeks, which 
are prominent and rounded. Yet the face is not so flat- 
tened as in the Mongols; the nose and other features being 
more distinct and projecting. The mouth is large and the 
lips rather thick. The forehead and vertex are in some 
cases deformed by art. 

The hearer will recollect the observations already made 
upon this alleged resemblance to the Mongolian variety. It 
should farther be added that according to Cuvier, the Malays 
themselves are a branch of the Mongolian race. Having 
premised thus much, we ask the question, where are the dis- 
tinctive marks? Different language is used to express the 
characters of the two nations; but where are the real means 
of discrimination which should be supposed adequate to dis- 
tinguish two of the four or five great families of the human 
race? What is there in these definitions indicating a differ- 
ence greater than that which subsists between different 
branches of a great race; between the French, Germans and 
Italians, or indeed between many of the modifications of 
the Malay or of the American race among themselves? The 
imbruted, lower caste savage of Owhyhee, the handsome 
Marquesan, the animated, half civilized and fiery Javanese, 
or to come to our own continent, the fair Cherokee, the 
black Brazilian, the gigantic Charib, and the stunted Chayma, 
mentioned by Humboldt, and to proceed farther, the Esqui- 
maux, certainly present differences far greater than any 
which may be deduced from the characters here presented. 
None certainly can be inferred from these at all comparable 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



45 



to those which subsist between the Caucasian, and the Mongol, 
the African, or the Malay. We may be allowed, too, to note 
that the alleged red of the Indians is frequently artificial; and 
that the appellation " red men," is generally claimed by these 
people from an idea of the superior beauty of the colour. 
Our ordinary habits of observation have not led us to identify 
red as a tinge of striking prevalence, sufficient to distinguish 
the dark tinge of the Indian from the brown of other races. 
We may add, that the Malay features, which we have fre- 
quently inspected, never appeared to us to have a well cha- 
racterized distinction from the Indians sufficient to constitute 
a section of mankind ; and that the craniums of the two races in 
our collections are nearly identical, and could not be preserved 
from confusion without artificial marks. 

We see nothing, therefore, in the features of the Indians 
which forbids their descent from Malay colonists. The dif- 
ficulty in regard to language appears at first view far more 
imposing. Of this we may judge in part from the compila- 
tions of Vater, of which we have already given an account. 
Yet it ought to be added that, in this point, the examination 
which that distinguished man was enabled to make, was 
necessarily defective. The languages of the eastern and 
south-eastern islands in the South Sea, more immediately 
adjacent to our continent, according to Balbi, have been but 
very imperfectly examined; and whether resemblances shall 
or shall not in future be found between them and the dialects 
of America, it is not admissible, at the present time, to cite 
them as affording a difficulty the existence of which has not 
yet been attested. It cannot be assumed that they diner 
from the languages of America, while we know not what 
they are. It appears from the tables of the writer last named, 
that among tribes which resemble the other inhabitants of the 
South Sea, (and may therefore be reasonably supposed of 
the same Malay race,) languages have notwithstanding been 



46 



OX THK ORIGIN OF 



discovered which do not appear to exhibit a Malay origin. 
If this be confirmed by future investigations, the process of 
forming new and diversified tongues, among the rovers of 
that nautical race, may be regarded as having commenced 
in the islands; and it is, therefore, in no respect difficult to 
suppose its extension to the mainland of America. 

This subject will, perhaps, receive additional illustration 
from a reference to the mode in which such a colonization as 
that of which we have been treating might reasonably be sup- 
posed to have taken place. The most plausible explanation 
which we can imagine of the manner in which remote islands 
become occupied by men in a barbarous state, is by small 
parties, wandering in canoes or boats of some description, and 
either driven by storms or led by errors in their estimation 
of the distances they traverse, until they have lost the pow- 
er of returning to their native coasts. In such a situation, 
it must undoubtedly be supposed that a very large portion 
would be destroyed; but individuals might survive till they 
reached the shore of some unknown land. It is capable of 
being imagined that similar voyages might have been attempt- 
ed with design; but we must still suppose this to have taken 
place in small parties. Any other supposition than this, 
any one which presumes a deliberate intention to discover 
new countries by larger masses of men, would imply the 
possession of something like civilization, and of more of the 
domestic arts than are found among the American Indians. 
Ind-eed, the small islands from which the departure would, 
in the present state of our earth, be obliged to take place, 
could hardly be supposed capable of furnishing larger bodies 
of navigators. We have, therefore, before us the spectacle 
of a numerous series of islands, which must, beyond all rea- 
sonable doubt, have been colonized by small numbers of bar- 
barians, wandering in boats or on rafts, from one resting 
place to another, suffering every disaster that could be in- 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



41 



meted on them by the ocean, the weather, and deficiency of 
food; but surviving to furnish inhabitants to nearly all of 
them. In what manner can these be supposed to have 
reached the main land, if not in detached families of two, 
three, four, or more, in a starving condition, and after a se- 
paration of many generations from any parent stock? We 
will not say that the multiplicity of American languages is 
capable of explanation; but it does appear to us that such a 
colonization as this goes nearer to furnishing an adequate one 
than any thing that can possibly be deduced from the Mongo- 
lian hypothesis. The one requires the supposition of an im- 
mense succession of colonies, succeeding one another through- 
out the world-girding length of two continents, and by some 
means hitherto unexplained, becoming isolated in their ac- 
quisitions, sufficiently to permit them to develop the enor- 
mous variety of languages which has been alleged to be 
found among their successors. The other draws a great 
number of detached families, from different islands, and per- 
haps from the continent of Africa, at different and distant pe- 
riods, in a state of ignorance and misery, and lands them at 
as many points as may be supposed* accessible to such, along 
the immense western and eastern coasts of the two Americas. 
If we suppose these the offspring of the adjacent islanders, 
they are such as have been for an indefinite time secluded 
from the rest of the world; and have, therefore, enjoyed the 
best opportunity of forming distinct languages. Arriving in 
the vast forests of the new continent, they must have found 
themselves for hundreds, perhaps, in some instances, thou- 
sands of years, as completely insulated as when they inhabit- 
ed their remote islands; their progeny not encountering those 
of others, till, after a long lapse of time and a great increase 
of numbers, they were induced to spread themselves or to 
migrate in search of food. Can any combination of circum- 



48 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



stances, short of miraculous intervention, be imagined more 
capable of the formation of a great number of languages? 

The condition in which we have endeavoured to show that 
colonists from the remote Malay islands must be supposed to 
have arrived, will perhaps correspond better than most others 
with the ignorance of arts and of domestic quadrupeds which 
we have described as having existed among the American 
Indians. To this we may add some similarity of character, 
particularly in their proneness to war on the small scale, and 
their peculiar acuteness in conducting it; unlike the barbari- 
ans of the Mongolian race, who generally spend their time in 
the care of cattle, and have seldom been represented in the 
warlike character unless in large masses, and urged by pow- 
erful chiefs. There are perhaps few races in the world so 
much addicted to petty warfare as the Malay and the Ame- 
rican Indians. 

We apprehend that we can find within the bounds of Ame- 
rica herself farther arguments, not without their weight, tend- 
ing to point out the South Sea Islanders as the principal 
source of American population. In contemplating the masses 
of human beings which inhabited the surface of this vast con- 
tinent, if we look for the points of greatest population, we 
shall find them in the west. If we look for the traces of an- 
cient civilization, they are rarely to be met with, and incom- 
parably inferior in number and magnificence in any regions 
which are not easily accessible from the western coast. If 
we inquire for the traditions of the natives, at least in nor- 
thern America, amid the confusion and inconsistency with 
which they are justly reproached, we may still discover a 
predominant opinion directing us to the same quarter; a cir- 
cumstance which has already been used to support the Mon= 
golian hypothesis. One of the largest masses of Indian po- 
pulation, as far as is gathered from early writers, seems to 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 4U 

have been in the empire of Peru. In this, the arts were 
carried to a height that astonished the conquerors. A large 
population, governed by laws, and by a hereditary race of 
kings and priests, was for the most part peaceably engaged 
in the labours of an extended and complicated agriculture, in 
the mechanic arts, and in the improvement of the country by 
the construction of roads, temples, and monuments. South 
of these, we find Chili, a highly populous country, and among 
its inhabitants, the warlike Araucanians, whose numbers and 
prowess for centuries resisted the Spanish arms, and who do 
not appear to have ever been entirely subdued. Farther 
north, the ancient Muyscas are situated with a similar rela- 
tion to the Pacific Ocean. The continuation of this line of 
populous empires and republics embraces next the thronging 
tribes of Guatimala and the celebrated monarchy of Mexico. 
These regions, it is true, extend to the borders of a sea com- 
municating with the Atlantic; but it should be considered 
that this arises from the deep indentation of the continent 
produced by the gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, and 
that the two populous countries we have named, although ac- 
cessible from the Atlantic, are more immediately so from the 
Pacific Ocean. The dense population described by the Spa- 
nish writers as having been.encountered by their countrymen 
in Florida, the West India islands, and the Spanish Main, 
countries lying exposed to the Atlantic, possessed the ad- 
vantages, in colonization, of great facility for canoe naviga- 
tion. They do not, moreover, appear to have existed in such 
large masses, or in such a high state of civilization, as their 
neighbours of Mexico. Farther north than this, we do not 
hear of a dense population; but in the place of it, along the 
western coast, we have the original country, the officina 
geniium, to which numerous tribes allege that they can trace 
their origin. As we have already had occasion to state, the 
various nations of Toltec or Aztec race, that have inhabited 

- ■ 7V; ; . 



50 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



the fertile mountain plains of Mexico, are alleged to have 
proceeded from the vicinity of California; and the traditions 
of a western origin which have been gathered from our own 
tribes, point towards a region still farther north. 

We have thus endeavoured to exhibit the arguments which 
appear to us to indicate the Malay or Oceanic race of the 
South Seas, as having probably furnished the largest share 
to the population of the two Americas. We have aimed to 
support this by adducing the fitness of these people to fur- 
nish detached and isolated colonies, of a single family at a 
time, to various and remote parts of the coast, and in a state 
of barbarism and ignorance sufficient to account for the pro- 
duction of numerous and unconnected languages; by urging 
their ignorance of history, arts and domestic animals, the 
adequate resemblance of their present descendants in the 
islands of the South Sea to the American Indians, their vicini- 
ty, their habits of navigation, and the fact of their having co- 
lonized the most widely spread portion of the globe of all the 
known varieties of mankind; and finally, by remarking the 
existence of the largest masses of people, in the most advanced 
stage of civilization, and apparently during the greatest space 
of time, along the whole western coast of these continents, as 
far as these traverse the more habitable zones of the earth. 

In thus endeavouring to disprove, in favour of the Malays, 
the commonly established supposition of the origin of the 
American Indians from a single locality, it has not been our 
design to exclude those other sources from which, with more 
or less probability, it can be urged that a portion of their 
progenitors were derived. We have already mentioned the 
resemblances of the Mayo language of Honduras to some of 
the dialects of Africa. W"e may quote from Pauvv's re- 
searches, to which hpwever we are far from giving implicit 
credit, the statement that Raleigh met with negroes in Gui- 
ana, Vasco Nunez, in Quarequa, and Rogers, in California, 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



m 



In addition to this, we have aiready cited several other consi- 
derations, among which are the trade winds, and the great 
contraction of the Atlantic Ocean from the simultaneous pro- 
jection of the two continents. An oblique line from Sierra 
Leone, in Africa, to Paraiba, in Brazil, measures, upon the 
maps, about 1890 English miles. These circumstances 
would certainly tend to facilitate migration from Africa to 
South America. 

Of the other sources from which it has been suggested that 
this continent may hare received a portion of its population, 
few remain but such as imply some degree of civilization on 
the part of the colonists. To all these we have made a par- 
tial reply in that part of our observations intended to prove 
that America was colonized by a barbarous people. Neither 
the Scandinavians, as we find them in history, the Welsh of 
Prince Madoc, the Egyptians, the Mongolian conquerors, 
nor the Chinese, could possibly have been the settlers of a 
new continent without leaving behind them,, universally dis- 
persed, the knowledge of many instruments, weapons, me- 
tals and domestic animals, and we may add, organized lan- 
guages, the traces of which, from their intrinsic usefulness, 
would now have entirely disappeared. A tribe originally 
numerous and possessed of iron and the sword, could never 
have sunk in extermination beneath the stone hatchets and ar- 
rows of our Indians; nor if they had, would their instruments 
have been lost by their successors, or escape our search in ex- 
amining their tombs. We have, for these reasons, laid out but 
little space for the inquiry into the merits of various theories 
of American colonization from such sources. It would, how- 
ever, be an injustice to our subject to pass them over without 
notice, or to omit to remark the vast extent of curious and 
learned inquiry into which they are calculated to lead us. 
They have occupied much space, in many volumes. We 



$2 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



shall give a hasty indication of some of them; abridging near- 
ly the whole from the ample list of Professor Vater. 

It is scarcely necessary to mention the mere supposition 
of some biblical commentators, that the Naphtuhim> a tribe 
of the descendants of Misraim, enumerated in the Scriptures, 
were the Americans; or that of Arias Montanus, that Ame- 
rica was the Ophir of Solomon's commercial navigation. 
Later critics have, we believe, referred Ophir to Ceylon or 
Malacca. The similarity between the Mexicans and the 
ancient Egyptians, to which we have already alluded, is such 
as at first view to assume quite a different aspect. The ori- 
gin of the former from the latter has been maintained by 
Huetius, Athanasius Kircher, Siguenza and Clavigero. The 
resemblance between the two nations must be confessed to 
be striking and astonishing. It extends to their pyramids, 
to the ideographic portion of their hieroglyphics, to a part of 
their mythology, to their manner of computing time, to their 
clothing, to some of their customs, and even, if we trust the 
pottery and sculpture of the Mexicans which have been exhi- 
bited in this country, and the plates in the works of Humboldt, 
to their physiognomy. In the Vues des Cordilleres of Baron 
Humboldt, are inserted several ancient Mexican paintings, 
bearing a truly startling analogy to the Scripture narratives of 
Noah and the deluge, of Eve and the serpent, and of Cain and 
Abel. On this discussion we have neither space nor time to en- 
large; but we will state in brief the arguments with which we 
w T ould rebut this hypothesis. They are — 1. That Mexico and 
Egypt alike lie very remote from the point of approxima- 
tion between the two continents. 2. That the remote na- 
vigation of the Egyptians is of very doubtful authenticity. 
3. That, the traditions of the Mexicans referring their 
origin to the north-west, this consideration militates against 
the possibility of that country having been reached by the 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



53 



Egyptians over the sea, and compels us to the supposition of 
a long migration through the countless tribes of the land pas- 
sage, round more than half the world. 4. That Mexican ci- 
vilization appears obviously a growth and refinement of the 
ideas and habits still found among the barbarous tribes far- 
ther north. 5. The whole remaining reasoning which we 
have already adduced to show that the origin of the Ameri- 
cans must have been from a barbarous people; the Egyptians, 
like other civilized nations, having been acquainted with the 
use of various metals, domestic arts, and subjugated animals, 
and with an organized language and a history. From these 
considerations we conclude that the resemblance of the Mex- 
icans to the Egyptians is the simple effect of that similarity 
which exists between the minds, bodies and necessities of men 
in the same stage of civilization in whatever part of the world. 

The hypothesis of the origin of the Indians from the Jews, 
and in particular, from the ten lost tribes, is supported by a 
number of writers, some of whom we have already oited. 
Gomara upholds their descent from the Canaanites, expelled 
by Joshua from the promised land. Le Compte and Hornn 
name the Phoenicians, in consequence of their extensive na- 
vigation. Acosta and Moraez suggest the facility with 
which Carthaginian ships could run down the trade winds, 
and in a short time arrive in America; where their posterity, 
isolated from the rest of mankind, might relapse into bar- 
barism; and Garcia quotes ancient authorities which describe 
the erection of great buildings by the Carthaginians, and 
compares these with remains found on this side of the At- 
lantic. A certain degree of importance is ascribed to these 
considerations by Vater ; as well as to the sacrifices of children 
by the Carthaginians, and by the inhabitants of New Grenada. 
De Laet defends the claims of the ancient inhabitants of 
Spain to the reputation of having furnished a portion of the 
population of America. These, when expelled from their 



54 



ON THE ORIGIN OP 



own country, by the cruelties of the Carthaginian and Ro- 
man conquerors, he supposes to have migrated to the islands 
on the western coast of Africa, and from these beyond the 
ocean. In confirmation of this, he quotes a passage in Pliny, 
describing large buildings found in uninhabited islands on 
the coast of Africa. Charron and Postel maintain the hypo- 
thesis that the Gauls colonized our continent, and defend it by 
referring to the custom of human sacrifices. Milius ascribes 
the colonization to the Celtic race; and De Laet and Valancey 
endeavour to confirm it by a comparison of languages and by 
other evidence. Several of the coincidences in language 
which are founded on words selected from La Hontan, are 
shown by Vater to be erroneous or exaggerated; the remain- 
der are few and might easily be accidental. In the work of De 
Laet is contained, in an extract from David Powel's Historia 
Cambria?, the celebrated and romantic story of the expedi- 
tion of Madoc, son of Owen Gwyneth, and the origin of the 
supposed Welsh Indians; and the glory of the exploit is 
proclaimed in the poems of Meredith, published in 1477. 
Prince Madoc, disgusted with the quarrels which took place 
among his brothers after the death of their father, collected 
a large number of followers, together with several vessels, 
which he provisioned for a long voyage, and set out in search 
of unknown countries. In the distant west, he discovered 
a fertile and uninhabited region; which he left in possession 
of a part of his followers, while he repaired to Wales, and 
led a new colony to his settlements, from which he never 
again returned. The searches made within this continent, 
together with the various reports of Welsh Indians, to which 
•this narrative has given rise, are well known to antiquaries. 
We observe, by a note of Mr. Duponceau, in the recently 
published volume of the Transactions of this Society, that a 
native of Wales is now in the United States, engaged in this 
hitherto fruitless research; exhibiting another example of that 



1 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



generous devotion to the claims of consanguinity and the 
glory of their ancestors, for which that high-minded people 
have so often been renowned. 

The origin of the Americans has been also ascribed to an- 
other great maritime nation, the Norwegians or Normans; 
and this hypothesis is in part maintained with all the au- 
thority of the celebrated Grotius. Ancient Icelandic and 
Norwegian narratives relate the progress of their ancestors 
from Iceland to Greenland, and from thence to Estotiland 
and Skralingaland or Wineland the Good; which are taken 
to be parts of the continent of America. Our readers will 
find a number of curious details on this subject in the recently 
published volume of the Transactions to which we have al- 
ready alluded. We may surely be allowed to refer to the 
suggestion that the name of Greenland, so incomprehensible 
when applied to a region of eternal snow and ice, may be 
explained, if we suppose a confusion in the minds of these 
unscientific voyagers, between that steril country, and parts 
of the coasts of Labrador and New England, which may 
have been visited in different expeditions. Grotius- has also^ 
remarked the resemblance between some religious customs- 
of Yucatan and those of the Ethiopians; from which he anti- 
cipates the inference, to which we have already alluded, on 
other grounds, with regard to the adjacent territory of Hon- 
duras, that colonists may have reached that vicinity from 
Africa. The same illustrious writer points out similarities 
between the customs of Peru and those of China, and at- 
tributes the colonization of the remaining portion of South 
America to the Javanese. As remarked by the judicioUvS 
Vater, the resemblances with China are only such as may be 
attributed to a similarity of character and an equal degree of 
civilization. It is proper .to add that Fischer unites with 
Grotius in the Chinese hypothesis; and that De Guignes en- 
deavours to prove, by historical researches, that the worship 



56 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



of the Grand Lama was transplanted to America in the year 
456, and that a Chinese ship formerly sailed annually, by 
the way of Kamtschatka, to the north-west of California, 
carrying on an extensive commerce. Sir William Jones en- 
deavours to draw a parallel between the Hindu mythology 
and customs, and those of the Peruvians, sufficient to establish 
a connexion in the same manner as attempted by Grotius in 
regard to the Chinese. Of the theory of Forniel, which re- 
fers the origin of the Americans to Japan, and to the coasts 
of Asia lying northwards of that Archipelago, it i3 hardly 
necessary to speak; as according to the just remark of Vater, 
this is the vicinity by which the Mongolian immigration 
must be supposed to have arrived, and the former supposi- 
tion is therefore involved in the one already so fully dis- 
cussed. 

According to J. R. Forster, the population of America may 
be supposed to have been influenced by the shipwreck and 
destruction of the great fleet of Koblai Khan, with which, 
in the year 1281, after the conquest of China, he attempted 
that of Japan. The fleet was lost in a storm, and it is not 
too much, in the opinion of Mr. Forster, to suppose that 
some of his vessels reached America. Humboldt quotes, 
from the annals of China, a statement that a tribe of the Ki- 
ong-nu, with its leader, was completely lost sight of in Nor- 
thern Siberia; and then inquires whether these were the Az- 
tecs of the Mexican territory. Acosta gives it as his opinion, 
that men and animals reaehed America by the northern ex- 
tremity from both Europe and Asia;: and adds, in order to 
confirm the idea that the population of America reached that 
country by an over land route, that the islands which were 
difficult of access from the continent, were found uninhabited. 
With regard to some of them, .as Juan Fernandez, this is 
known to be correct. The Gallipagos were scarcely capable 
of supporting human life. Garcia, in commenting upon 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



57 



Acosta, remarks that America was peopled from various 
sources, and by various means, both accidental and intention- 
al; and he enumerates among the parent nations, Greeks, 
Phenicians, Tartars, Chinese, Carthaginians, Jews, Romans, 
and ancient Spaniards. De Laet apprehends that Spaniards 
probably reached America by the way of the Canary Islands 
and the Azores; and that Irish colonists probably also arrived 
there. Besides these, he imagines Scythians to have also 
contributed to swell the mass, and to have introduced, in 
South America, the barbarous practice of cannibalism. As 
is well observed by Vater, the existence of cannibalism 
proves nothing; as many uncultivated nations were alike 
guilty of this enormity. This horrible custom is, we think, 
best explained by Humboldt, in a manner to which we have 
already alluded. De Laet adds, that South America was 
probably colonized from the Islands of the South Sea; though 
this idea, maintained b}^ Dr. S. L. Mitchill, is rejected by 
Charlevoix and Vater, as more improbable than the route by 
North America and Tartary. The theory of George de Hornn, 
although certainly of less authority than those of Grotius and 
Garcia, is at least equally elaborate and complicated. We 
sketch it from the same source from which we have bor- 
rowed most of the above. He rejects Negroes, the inhabi- 
tants of the north of Europe, Greeks, Romans, Hindoos, Jews, 
Christians, and Mohammedans. America, according to him, 
was first settled from the north, by Scythians, who were fol- 
lowed successively by Phenicians, Carthaginians, Canaanites, 
and Chinese; and many detached colonists of different na- 
tions, including probably some Jews and Christians, were 
added to the list after this continent had been fully peopled. 
The first arrival of the Phenician race must have been in 
very remote antiquity. The second was that mentioned by 
Diodorus Siculus; where he states that the Carthaginians sent 
colonies to an island in Western Libya. It is highly proba- 

8 



58 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



ble, continues De Hornn, that among the fleets of Ophir, 
some of the crews may have been driven to America. Peru 
and Mexico were colonized by people of Cathay, of China, 
and Japan, with the addition of some Phenician and Egyp- 
tian adventurers; which mixture is designed to account for 
the similarities to the older world noticed among this in- 
teresting people. Manco Capac was a Chinese prince; and 
two hundred years afterwards, Facfur, king of China, after 
being dethroned by Koblai Khan, left China with a thousand 
ships and a hundred thousand of his subjects, and arrived in 
America. De Hornn notices the absence of horses at that 
epocha in China; an observation which had been made of a 
part of the Scythians by the advocates of a former theory. 
On this complicated and detailed hypothesis we shall make 
no comment; but will content ourselves with extracting the 
opinion of the great German writer whom we have so often 
quoted. " Such is the entirely uncertain and tottering struc- 
ture of possibilities erected by this ingenious ethnographer." 
— "The utmost which can be attained by conjectures linked 
together in this manner, and which is not overthrown by con- 
tradictory facts, is bare possibility." 

The scientific world long waited with impatience for the 
results which should be attained by the prolonged and mul- 
titudinous researches of Baron Humboldt. This learned and 
indefatigable investigator, knowing better than any other 
the obscurity of the subject and the want of any certain con- 
clusion, has in a great measure confined himself to the col- 
lection of materials with the addition of occasional comments; 
and has not, in any of his works which have reached our hands, 
combined his ideas on this interesting inquiry into an ex- 
tended and systematic view. They are to be found scattered 
through various parts of his voluminous writings; but parti- 
cularly in the Vues des Cordilleres. M. de Humboldt cites a 
great number of instances of remarkable resemblance between 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



59 



the Mexicans and the ancient Egyptians; which are princi- 
pally included under the heads already enumerated. He 
also mentions a variety of analogies, of a less striking cha- 
racter, between other nations of the American continent and 
various portions of the population of an older world. The 
learned author expresses the belief that these arise from a 
connexion between the two continents in very remote times, 
and that probabilities are in favour of the passage by Beh- 
ring's Straits and the Aleutian or Fox Islands; but he con- 
fesses freely that all efforts at exhibiting the precise course, 
the epocha of migration, the chain of affiliated nations, or in 
fact any of the circumstances of the transaction, have hither- 
to resulted in entire disappointment. 

From "The Book of the Indians" of Mr. S. G. Drake, 
(an interesting volume recently put into our hands by the po- 
liteness of the author,) we compile an additional reference 
which we do not recollect to have seen elsewhere. Noticing 
the alleged mention of a western continent by Plato and Se- 
neca, the tragedian, Mr. Drake cites a passage from iElian, 
in which again occurs a citation from a writer of the age of 
Alexander the Great. In this quotation we are told of a 
great and boundless continent, producing animals and men of 
extraordinary stature and longevity, inhabiting many great 
cities, and possessed of vast quantities of gold and silver. 
This would seem to point out reality in the idea of voyages 
having been made to this continent at that early day, by the 
maritime nations of the Levant. 

Such is the list of hypotheses of the primeval colonization 
of America which we have been able to abstract from the 
best accessible authorities. It may have been fatiguing 
in the recital; but some reflections will naturally present 
themselves which may perhaps be indulged. It is at once 
apparent what a vast field for laborious inquiry would be 
opened by attempting to discuss all these various theories, 



60 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



Their very number is itself an argument against them. It 
is impossible, of course, to do any justice to them within the 
bounds of the present essay; and to select a single one or 
any small number, on which to dilate and fill up a large 
portion of our time, would be an undue preference. We 
have therefore passed over slightly many curious statements 
of a wild and adventurous character, which otherwise might 
have attracted your attention, and perhaps excited a deeper 
interest. It is time to approximate a close to these observa- 
tions, extended perhaps already beyond a reasonable length; 
and we shall therefore proceed to sum up our conclusions. 
From a review of all that we have compiled, the mass of 
evidence appears to us to indicate the inferences which we 
are now proceeding to append. 

We infer that the main bulk of the American population 
is probably derived from colonies of barbarous people, in the 
rudest state of life which can be imagined compatible with 
the preservation of their lives and the increase of their num- 
bers. That the various colonies of civilized men which 
would appear from historical documents to have, at different 
periods, reached this country, were probably in many in- 
stances massacred, or in other ways destroyed by the unfa- 
vourable circumstances of their situation, as has been the 
case with so many colonies of the fate of which we are fur- 
nished with authentic accounts. That the survival of any 
of them, from the total absence of the domestic arts and 
knowledge of domestic animals which they must have intro- 
duced, is at best extremely problematical; and that they can- 
not have given rise to any considerable proportion of the po- 
pulation of America. That the Esquimaux races are appa- 
rently of Mongolian or Tartar descent, their predecessors 
having arrived by Behring's Straits or by Alascaand the Aleu- 
tian Isles; and that after their formation into tribes and the pro- 
duction of a language, they appear to have transmitted back to 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 



61 



Asia the colony of the Tschuktschi. That it is very proba- 
ble that much of the blood of the adjacent Indian tribes is 
derived from the same source, particularly of those of the 
north-west. That the origin of the great bulk of the Indians 
remains without any explanation accompanied by a satis- 
factory degree of probability. That the derivation of these, 
particularly in South America, from the Mongolian source, is 
hard to be conceived when we take into view the difficulties 
of the case; and that the presumption has considerable force 
that they are principally the descendants of colonists from 
the islands of the South Sea. And finally that a certain de- 
gree of probability attaches to the hypothesis of African emi- 
gration; a question to be elucidated by farther inquiries. 

It must certainly be admitted that these conclusions form 
another and a striking example of the obscurity and imper- 
fection which so much abound in the results of a very large 
portion of human science. They strongly bring to the mind 
a criticism of our learned and venerable member, P. S. Du- 
ponceau, Esq. While the philosophers of Europe have been 
employed in speculations and inquiries, directed, beyond a 
vast ocean, to the origin of the natives of America, some 
of them have overlooked a problem, yet unexplained, which 
lies at their own door; the genealogy and cause of the organ- 
ic peculiarities of the natives of Africa. A section of the 
globe, within a day's sail of ancient Greece and Rome, nay, 
which contained ancient Egypt within its boundaries, has 
had no explanation given of the very remarkable peculiari- 
ties which characterize nearly its whole population. We 
may add, that until the last few years its great rivers were 
never explored by navigation, its deserts never traversed by 
civilized men, the conquests and glory of ancient empires 
were confined to its northern border, and, while the illimita- 
ble regions of North and South America have been explored, 
subdued, delineated in all directions, that continent which 



(32 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



was the cradle of all our civilization, remains throughout 
nearly its whole extent, a blank upon the map of the globe. 
Contemplations such as these are calculated to impress us 
with a distrust of the boasted prowess of our own race; and 
while we are toiling with self-gratulation in the fields of 
science, inevitably and perpetually remind us of the littleness 
of man, and the small space he occupies when taken into 
comparison with the agencies of nature and the destinies of 
worlds. 



And here, gentlemen of the Historical Society, might 
properly terminate our dry inquiry into the origin of the 
American Indians. But I see before me those whom a be- 
nign providence has sent into existence for the purpose of 
softening and ameliorating a world which, if abandoned alone 
to the passions of men, would be too sanguinary and ferocious ; 
those whose society is at once the source and the reward of 
civilization and morality. The occasion is tempting to urge 
the cause of the unhappy aboriginals, and must not be ne- 
glected. What are the inquiries of abstract research to the 
claims of living and suffering humanity? It is to woman 
that we can ever appeal for all that is generous in self devo- 
tion and gentle and lovely in performance. You possess the 
power to guide and control public opinion. You mould the 
statesman and the warrior, and convert their cold and cruel cal- 
culations into plans of benevolence and humanity. Nothing 
but woman can bid the demon of avarice to pause in his career. 
It is to woman, therefore, that I address the cause of the un- 
fortunate beings who have been the subject of this discourse; 
a race suffering from every ill that can be inflicted by the 
combined agency of the thirst for land and the thirst for gold. 
We have habituated ourselves to consider the Indians as 
something poetical. We call them Lenni Lennape, and 



THE INDIAN POPULATION. 63 

write odes, elegies and tragedies to their memory. To the 
unfortunate Delawares, life, alas! is prose. They are a suf- 
fering and unhappy race, ruined by the shock of successive 
wars, for quarrels not their own, or driven to combat by dis- 
tressing necessity. Wandering upon the banks of the Wa- 
bash or the Arkansas, while we possess their old and well 
known seats, they are still the same people who were so 
long the faithful allies of Pennsylvania; the men who suc- 
coured our ancestors and enable them to form a state. Does 
not that state owe something to its former friends and par- 
tisans? 



NOTE. 



The writer of the preceding 1 sheets feels it as an act of justice to acknow- 
ledge the valuable assistance which he has received in their compilation. 
From Mr. Rawle he received the substantial favour of a very extended and 
interesting set of references. To Mr. Duponceau, he is indebted for seve- 
ral highly useful suggestions, most of which, he believes, are referred to 
their proper source in the text To the Rev. Canon Monteagudo, of Mexico, 
he owes references to the learned and copious work of Garcia; and he only 
regrets not having enjoyed such valuable assistance at a time and to an extent 
which would have made him better acquainted with the early Spanish wri- 
ters. He must add to the list his young friend, Dr. Edward Rice, of Litiz, 
Pennsylvania; without whose assistance in translating Vater, he could scarce- 
ly have executed his purpose. 



THE END> 



ANNU AIj discourse, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

OF 

PENNSYLVANIA, 

ON THE 28TH DAY OP APRIL, 1834, 

ON THE ORIGIN 

OP THE 

INDIAN POPULATION OF AMERICA. 



v/ 

BY B. H. COATES, M. D. 



Es iBt nicht moglich alles zu erklaren was in der grauen Vorwelt dammert ; es iat 
nicbt moglich alles zu erklaren was die Natur in ihrer Werkstatte bereitet. 

Vater, uber Amerika's Bev61kerung 

It is not possible to explain every thing that glimmers in the twilight of grey anti- 
quity—it is not possible to explain all that is prepared in the laboratories of nature. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PRINTED FOR M'CARTY & DAVIS, — No. 171, MARKET STREET. 

1834. 



y 1 








, * Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 201 0 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 




^0' 



o > 



LIBRARY 




